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EDUCATIONAL 
PROBLEMS 


BY 


G.  STANLEY   HALL,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

PRESIDENT  OF   CLARK   UNIVERSITY  AND   PROFESSOR   OF 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND   PEDAGOGY 


33J  jT 


VOLUME  I 


NEW    YORK    AND     LONDON 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 

191 1 


Copyright,  191  i,  by 
D.    APPLETON   AND   COMPANY 


PuhUahed  May,  1911 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


library; 

■L—  C^ 

|4m 


JL-O 


.LOS ,.  J  y*\ 


INTRODUCTION 


In  looking  over  the  past  twenty-five  years,  it  seems  hardly 
too  much  to  say  that  educational  thought  has  broadened  more 
in  the  past  five,  and  certainly  ten,  years  than  in  the  twenty 
that  preceded.  At  the  beginning  of  the  period  the  schools 
were  stagnant,  the  teachers  complacent,  and  the  work  formal 
and  mechanical.  The  great  movement  started  by  Horace 
Mann  had  spent  its  force.  Pedagogy  was  despised  in  aca- 
demic circles  (the  word  suggesting  pettifogging  to  one  don 
in  an  Atlantic  Monthly  contribution).  Child  study  was  un- 
known. Psychology  of  all  kinds  had  no  recognition.  The 
philosophy  of  education  consisted  chiefly  of  a  few  sonorous 
metaphysical  platitudes  which  mystified  far  more  than  they 
enlightened.  Those  who  brought  lessons  from  abroad  were 
told  that  American  schools  must  be  kept  American,  and  their 
voice  was  almost  like  that  of  those  who  cry  in  the  wilderness. 
Superintendent  Philbrick  publicly  challenged  all  comers  to 
find  any  essential  imperfection  in  the  schools  of  Boston,  and 
State  Superintendent  Dickinson  had  a  philosophy  that  was 
remarkably  complete,  defining  everything  needful  in  four 
blackboards  full,  on  which  every  large  question  which  teachers 
had  a  right  to  ask  was  answered  by  carefully  worded  for- 
mula. Dr.  W.  T.  Harris  was  rapidly  acquiring  the  almost 
papal  authority  which  he  later  wielded  among  the  leaders, 
now  the  "  old  guard."  Educational  journals  of  that  period 
were  timid,  prgvincial,  and  are  now  utterly  unreadable.  The 
N.  E.  A.  under  the  Bicknell  regime  was  being  very  rapidly 
pushed  to  its  later  prominence  as  a  pedagogic  sanliedrin. 
The  term  "  and  pedagogy  "  appended  to  my  title  as  Professor 
of  Psychology  at  the  Johns  Hopkins  in  1884  was,  I  think, 
the  second  in  the  country.  I'rofessor  r*ayne,  of  Michigan, 
preceding,  to  be  attached  to  any  chair   in  any  considerable 


vi  INTRODUCTION 

college  or  university,  and  was  regarded  by  nearly  all  my 
friends  as  a  handicap.  President  Eliot's  introduction  of  my 
first  Boston  course  (Chapter  XIV,  Vol.  II,  page  241)  was 
very  typical  of  the  attitude  even  of  those  who  were  advanced. 
I  still  have  a  letter  from  a  president  of  a  now  leading  state 
university  canceling  my  appointment  on  his  faculty  upon  my 
return  from  Germany,  because  he  deemed  it  unsafe  to  dis- 
cuss the  fundamental  principles  of  education  upon  which  our 
system  was  based,  as  he  thought  I  would  do  it,  because  this 
would  be  "  unsettling."  Another  leading  orthodox  Eastern 
college  president  declared  that  he  did  not  propose  to  send  his 
philosophy,  theology,  religion,  or  basal  educational  convictions 
to  any  psychological  laboratory  or  any  psychologist  to  be 
tested.  But  I  forbear  (for  it  would  be  almost  cruel  to  those 
still  living,  some  of  whom  have  changed  for  the  better,  doubt- 
less, more  than  I  have)  to  cite  further  from  my  memoranda 
of  these  early  days.  It  was  a  kind  of  warfare  for  years, 
sometimes  merry,  sometimes  in  earnest,  with  scars  which  vet- 
erans on  the  winning  side  may  be  pardoned  for  feeling  some 
pride  in  showing,  but  had  now  better  ignore  and  forget,  so 
altered  is  everything.  Educational  domains,  once  denied,  then 
ridiculed,  are  now  represented  by  experts  devoting  all  their 
time  to  each  in  many  of  our  leading  universities.  Such  topics 
are  school  hygiene,  the  history  of  education,  industrial  train- 
ing of  many  kinds,  plays  and  playgrounds,  subnormality,  re- 
ligious and  moral  education,  art.  Meanwhile,  our  conception 
of  education  has  broadened  far  beyond  the  confines  of  the 
school  and  we  are  realizing  that  it  is  as  wide  as  life  itself 
and  that  the  highest  standpoint  from  which  any  human  insti- 
tution can  be  judged  is  a  pedagogic  or  pragmatic  one.  Child 
study,  once  ridiculed  and  despised,  has  spread  to  every  highly 
civilized  land  and  is  represented  by  academic  chairs  and  jour- 
nals galore  and  has  become  the  chief  stone  of  the  corner.  In- 
stead of  the  child  being  for  the  sake  of  the  school,  we  have 
had  a  Copernican  revolution,  and  now  the  school,  including  its 
buildings,  all  its  matter  and  method,  revolve  about  the  child, 
whose  nature  and  needs  supply  the  norm  for  everything. 
Those  who  know  what  has  been  done  in  this  domain  already 
speak  with  an  authority  which  is  recognized  as  is  no  other. 
Yet,  despite  all  this  progress,  our  school  system  is  yet  in 


INTRODUCTION  vii 

the  gristle,  and  comparatively  little  of  its  history  can  be  writ- 
ten yet  because  the  best  of  it  has  not  yet  been  made.  Edu- 
cation is  still  rutty,  mechanical,  and  the  system  is,  on  the 
whole,  poorly  served  by  those  who  teach,  admirable  as  the 
best  are.  Our  schools  are  financially  poorly  supported,  despite 
the  $300,000,000  spent  a  year,  and  need  and  must  have  a  far 
larger  budget.  So,  too,  notwithstanding  its  rapid  growth, 
our  school  system  has  not  yet  transcended  the  tadpole  stage, 
and  the  next  twenty-five  years  ought  to — and  I  am  optimist 
enough  to  believe  they  will — show  vastly  accelerated  prog- 
ress, so  that  the  transformations  of  the  past  quarter  of  a 
century  will  appear  small  beside  those  of  the  next  quarter, 
and  the  per  capita  sum  spent  upon  each  child  will  be  greatly 
augmented.  There  will  be  improvement  in  the  professional 
standing  of  teachers,  in  their  character,  ability,  and  training, 
and  many  transformations,  very  likely  radical,  which  it  is 
impossible  to  forecast,  are  sure  to  occur.  The  many  and 
grave  faults  that  now  limit  the  usefulness  and  threaten  the 
future  of  our  system  must  be  removed  at  whatever  cost,  for 
our  stability,  progress,  and  standing  among  the  nations  of  the 
world,  which  are  now  gravely  imperiled.  Our  destiny  is  at 
stake.  Thus,  America  to-day  needs  a  new  educational  dis- 
pensation. Our  system  is  not  fulfilling  the  purpose  for  which 
our  fathers  established  it,  nor  is  it  molding  men  as  it  did  in 
older  days  when  it  was  simpler  and  cheaper,  and  in  these 
volumes  I  have  tried  to  point  out  in  some  detail,  as  best  I 
could,  why,  as  well  as  to  suggest  the  needed  cures  as  I  see 
them. 

Let  us  look  at  the  two  extremes  of  good  and  had  and 
then  ask  which  we  are  nearest.  I.  Ideal  teaching  focuses  in 
suggestion.  The  more  interest  on  the  child's  part,  the  nearer 
the  nascent  period  for  the  topic,  the  more  genius  and  ability, 
the  lighter  may  the  suggestion  be  and  the  less  method  is 
necessary  to  touch  off  the  innate  springs,  the  less  repetition 
is  necessary  and  the  more  sure  and  permanent  the  acquisi- 
tion. Such  teaching  at  the  right  psychological  moment  is, 
like  a  hint  to  the  wise,  sufficient.  Biographies  and  religion 
abound  with  instances  where  a  chance  word  or  event,  or  per- 
haps the  unconscious  influence  of  a  single  teacher  or  ac(|uaint- 
ance,  has  changed  the  whole  current  of  life.    This  is  the  right 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

seed  upon  good  soil,  fittest  if  sown  in  its  proper  season. 
Moreover,  in  every  normal  child  at  about  every  moment  of 
its  life  there  is  some  zest  or  curiosity  just  ripe  for  impregna- 
tion with  information  and  suggestion,  which  will  be  instantly 
and  forever  assimilated  with  no  need  of  explanation  or  re- 
view, which,  indeed,  these  would  positively  injure,  because 
they  would  interfere  with  the  complete  absorption  of  knowl- 
edge and  keep  it  nearer  the  memory  surfaces.  The  pedagogic 
world  knows  little  of  what  might,  could,  and  should  happen 
if  a  child's  soul  were  thus  constantly  fructified  by  the  most 
and  the  best  that  an  ever-present  mentor,  charged  with  love 
and  knowledge  and  sagely  observant  of  times  and  seasons  in 
making  the  most  of  every  opportunity,  could  do.  This  is  the 
ideal  education,  and  though  it  may  never  be  fully  realized,  it 
should  be  ever  kept  in  mind  and  constantly  approximated. 
The  school  is  to  shorten  the  stages  by  which  the  child  repeats 
the  history  of  the  race.  Perhaps  none  of  these  essential 
stages  should  be  entirely  omitted  for  the  fullest  and  most 
humanistic  culture.  Some  of  them  need  to  reverberate  only 
faintly  and  but  once  to  do  their  great  work  of  stimulus. 
Some  need  to  be  touched  only  in  the  lightest  way.  Often 
even  the  germs  of  the  sins  and  errors  of  all  the  past  must 
be  made  to  glow  up  for  a  moment,  for  the  vestiges  of  evil 
are  thus  burned  out,  while  at  the  same  time  their  conflagra- 
tion alone  can  arouse  the  next  highest  powers  which  control 
or,  it  may  be,  repress  them.  Others  need  to  be  betoned  with 
emphasis  lest  something  vital,  that  is  part  of  man's  precious 
legacy  from  his  immemorial  past,  be  lost  to  life,  for  the  best 
in  us  is  often  only  the  worst  sublimated  and  transfigured. 

II.  On  the  other  hand,  in  an  organized  system  of  education 
we  have,  of  course,  to  depart  point  by  point  from  this  ideal, 
so  that  we  cannot  afiford  to  forget  that  by  an  iron  law,  like 
that  of  gravity  itself,  schools  constantly  tend  to  approximate 
the  worst.  What  is  this?  Apathetic,  unwilling  pupils,  coerced 
(  to  attend ;  topics  which  invoke  no  alluring  interest  in  the  soul 
Nand  so  constantly  tend  to  lapse  without  incessant  repetition 
and  mechanical  drill;  themes  taught  out  of  season  and  those 
where  method  ever  tends  to  predominate  over  matter  and 
content;  everything  out  of  its  proper  age,  either  too  early  or 
late  or  at  the  wrong  season  of  the  year  or  time  of  day;  sex 


INTRODUCTION  IX 

differences  ignored;  individuality  obliterated  in  the  monoto- 
nous mass,  and  the  law  of  average  made  supreme;  skill  and 
knowledge  stressed  that  have  no  value  for  later  life  and  will 
be  lost  when  school  is  over;  prim,  formal  conventional  vir- 
tues put  in  place  of  essential  personal  morality;  no  attention 
paid  to  that  function  of  life  which  is  at  the  dawn  of  puberty 
the  most  dominant  of  all  interests,  hungriest  for  information 
and  capable  of  assimilating  condensed  extracts  of  more  that 
is  needful  for  right  conduct  in  life  than  any  other  function 
of  human  nature,  little  or  nothing  helpful  in  bread  winning, 
which  is  the  first  duty  of  man,  conditioning  his  value  in  mod- 
ern life;  incessant  recitation  and  examination  because  the 
teacher,  with  only  too  much  justice,  feels  that  without  them 
everything  gained  may  slip  away  forever  because  it  strikes 
no  root;  the  soul-breaking  drudgery  of  marking,  because  so 
little  is  known  of  the  real  life  and  powers  of  the  child  that 
each  one  has  to  be  judged  merely  by  this  factitious  and  super- 
ficial test;  so  that  hosts  of  children  are  robbed  of  their  in- 
alienable right  to  be  in  that  grade  and  class  where  they  can 
get  most  and  are  sentenced  to  the  treadmill  of  repeating  a  sub- 
ject half  or  sixty  or  seventy  per  cent  known  already;  no  time 
or  agency  to  find  the  individual  propriiim  of  each  child,  on 
the  detection  of  and  emphasis  on  which  it  will  depend  whether 
or  not  he  ever  does  anything  worth  while,  especially  if  he 
has,  as  most  do  have,  capacities  above  the  average  in  some 
direction ;  just  half  those  who  should  be  in  the  system,  out' 
of  it,  day  by  day;  school  keeping  half  the  week  days  in  the 
year;  poorly  paid  and  trained  teachers,  longing  and  ready  to 
do  better  on  the  first  chance  and  leaving  so  fast  that  some 
fifth  of  our  educational  army  is  every  year  composed  of  raw 
recruits;  shoals  of  foreigners  landing  on  our  shores  each  year 
whose  children  have  to  be  taught  the  very  elementary  things 
of  life  in  this  country;  school  boards,  the  members  of  which 
are,  on  the  whole,  not  more  than  half  competent,  and  with 
more  interest  in  their  own  personal  ambitions  than  in  the 
duty  of  public  service;  women,  because  their  services  can  ht 
procured  for  a  less  fee.  where  men  should  l)e;  teaching  largely 
reduced  to  lesson  setting  and  hearing;  text-bonks  all-dominant, 
usurping  the  place  of  personal  inculcation ;  occasional  corrup- 
tion ;  wastefulness ;  unfit  teachers  kept  in  their  places  by  un- 


X  INTRODUCTION 

worthy  influences;  uniformity  of  goal;  laws  by  the  score 
enacted  each  year,  but  many  of  them  unenforced  and  unen- 
forceable; a  censorship  placed  on  all  within  the  system  who 
may  be  moved  to  speak  out  their  minds  and  point  out  defects, 
and  grandiose  eulogies  of  the  system  on  all  public  occasions  by 
those  who  may  be  and  are  responsible  for  it;  juvenile  crime 
and  vice  abounding;  bad  eyes,  teeth,  and  health  generally, 
increasing  up  the  grades ;  everything  slack  and  at  low  pres- 
sure; the  home  abandoning  its  functions  to  the  school,  which 
latter  excuses  itself  by  charging  its  own  defects  and  short- 
comings back  upon  the  home;  the  church  and  all  religious 
influences  banished  from  the  school,  because,  forsooth,  its 
representatives  cannot  agree  on  what  is  best  and  this  is  there- 
fore the  easiest  way;  moral  and  industrial  education,  the  two 
chief  problems  and  needs  to-day  throughout  the  educational 
world,  regarded  as  fads  and  frills;  innovations  suspected; 
nearly  all  I  have  described  in  the  last  chapter  on  Civics  ig- 
nored; a  persistent  fringe  of  illiteracy,  children  leaving,  on 
the  average,  at  the  end  of  the  sixth  when  the  bill  of  fare 
provides  twelve  courses — this  is  the  nadir. 

Somewhere  between  these  extremes,  all  great  systems  of 
national  education  hover.  None  realizes  all  the  worst  nor  all 
the  best  agencies.  Which  are  we  nearest  and  toward  which 
are  we  mainly  tending?  This  is  the  vital,  heart-searching 
question  which  is  always  in  order,  and  perhaps  never  so  much 
so  as  now.  One  thing  is  certain,  however,  that  those  within 
the  system  neither  dare  nor  are  they  competent  to  judge  it. 
Few  of  the  outside  criticisms,  lately  so  numerous,  have  that 
degree  of  expertness  which  makes  their  voice  authoritative. 
College  presidents  and  professors,  a  few  of  whom  might  pro- 
nounce upon  it,  often  have  their  own  interests,  the  one  in 
increasing  the  number  of  students  for  their  institutions,  and 
the  other  the  advancing  of  their  own  text-books.  They  can 
never  look  at  the  system  from  without  and  with  entire  im- 
partiality. They  usually  know  only  parts  of  it,  especially  the 
high  schools.  Thus,  these  doctors,  to  whom  our  patients 
would  most  naturally  turn,  are  not  properly  trained  to  diag- 
nose and  prescribe,  but  are  very  prone  to  be  suffering  more 
or  less  from  the  same  distempers  while  thinking  themselves 
well,  and  thus   do  not  rightly  evaluate  essential  symptoms. 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

Again,  we  are  so  rankly  prosperous  as  a  nation,  so  satisfied, 
have  been  so  successful  that  we  trust  in  the  principle  of  laisses 
faire  implicitly.  Providence  or  nature  will  take  care  of 
America,  and  whatever  betides,  all  will  come  out  right  in  the 
end  and  bread  will  fall  from  somewhere  into  every  open  and 
hungry  mouth,  and  so  it  usually  does.  The  American  gen- 
erally gets  a  living  and  gets  on  in  this  great  land  of  oppor- 
tunity without  needing  to  figure  too  closely.  If  the  school 
is  wasteful,  so  are  homes,  railroads,  business  methods,  Con- 
gress, and  the  rest — and  we  can  afford  it.  If  the  schools  do 
not  teach  the  right  thing  in  the  right  way,  the  children  gen- 
erally survive  the  loss  and  the  tide  of  foreign  immigrants  gets 
assimilated  somehow.  Poorer  nations  may  practice  small 
educational  economies,  but  we  have  no  more  pressing  need 
of  the  conservation  of  humanity  which  drifts  to  us  from  all 
the  earth  than  of  forests  and  other  natural  resources.  All 
this  compels  us  to  the  conclusion  that  we  cannot  expect  any 
radical  reforms  or  reconstructions  of  our  educational,  without 
reform  and  reconstruction  of  our  social,  system,  of  which  the 
school  is  essentially  typical. 

Despite  complaints  of  many  sorts,  just  and  unjust  and 
from  many  sources,  wise  and  otlverwise,  and  despite  the  lau- 
dation of  our  system  from  top  to  bottom  by  its  representatives 
and  also  by  well-disposed  and  personally  conducted  foreign 
visitors,  it  has  never  yet  had  the  benefit  of  much  of  any  true 
criticism  which  was  at  the  same  time  competent  and  impar- 
tial. This  it  profoundly  needs,  and  never  so  much  so  as  now, 
for  never  since  its  beginning  has  the  public  school  been  so 
inadequate  to  our  needs,  since,  much  as  the  latter  has  grown 
and  improved,  the  demands  which  have  to  be  made  upon  edu- 
cation have  increased  far  more  rapidly.  The  average  Amer- 
ican citizen  in  embryo  leaves  school  at  the  sixth  grade,  having 
had  instruction  only  by  poorly  trained  and  underpaid  women. 
He  has  had  practically  no  training  toward  self-support,  knows 
little  or  nothing  of  personal  hygiene,  which  is  the  religion  of 
the  body,  or  of  civics,  which  is  the  religion  of  citizenship,  or 
of  sex,  which  with  the  increasingly  urban  lif«  is  a  source  of 
more  and  greater  dangers  than  ever  before.  Our  young  peo- 
ple are  turned  out  into  life  just  before  the  dawn  of  jmbescence, 
most  ignorant  and  most  exposed.     If  the  child  has  any  re- 


XU  INTRODUCTION 

ligion,  it  has  come  to  him  from  outside  the  school.  What  is 
more  vital  than  these  things?  School  methods,  texts  and 
topics  are  traditional  and  teaching  is  slack  and  easy-going. 
The  high  school,  and  often  the  college,  is  mechanical,  com- 
placent, and  mediocrity  of  both  is  protected  and  kept  in  coun- 
tenance by  their  respectability.  The  true  university  is  only 
half  developed  and  the  administrative  and  financial  methods 
of  our  old  endowed  institutions,  if  not  "  rotten,"  as  the  head 
of  one  of  our  largest  and  oldest  universities  has  lately  called 
them,  are  in  crying  need  of  radical  revision,  as  I  had  intended 
to  show,  point  by  point,  in  chapters  on  the  college,  the  uni- 
versity, the  technical,  medical,  theological,  and  law  schools, 
which  are  excluded  from  this  volume  by  limitations  of  space, 
but  which  will  appear  later.  Thus  our  whole  system  is  in 
crying  need  of  thoroughgoing  inspection  and  overhauling  by 
experts,  such  as  commercial,  manufacturing,  and  other  con- 
cerns are  now  everywhere  employing,  to  point  out  how  wast- 
age can  be  avoided  and  greater  efficiency  secured.  This  work, 
boards  that  control  both  educational  systems  and  institutions 
will,  I  am  convinced,  soon  bring  to  pass.  We  need  nothing 
less  than  a  great  educational  revival  all  along  the  line,  and  I 
believe  it  has  already  begun  ^nd  that  a  greater  transformation 
than  we  have  ever  had,  impends.  Thus  I  am  not  pessimistic, 
for  we  have  gained  of  late  at  a  pace  which,  up  to  date,  is 
constantly  accelerating. 

I  wish,  therefore,  that  I  dared  to  entitle  this  book  The 
Pedagogy  of  the  Future.  Every  one  of  the  new  departures 
indicated  in  the  following  chapters  has,  I  believe,  without 
exception,  already  been  somewhere  put  in  successful  opera- 
tion, and  the  first  duty  of  the  present  is  to  broaden  our  com- 
parative viewpoint  until  it  has  an  international,  if  not  world- 
wide, range  and  put  into  practice  all  the  best  that  has  been 
anywhere  found  to  work  well.  But  this  is  not  all,  for,  before 
it  is  completely  done,  many  new  problems  and  possibilities 
now  unglimpsed  will  be  seen.  Hence,  the  complete  pedagogy 
of  the  future,  when  it  comes,  will  be  larger  than  it  has  yet 
entered  into  ths  heart  of  any  man  to  conceive.  Thus,  the 
present  situation  should  appeal  to  the  best  young  men  as  edu- 
cation has  never  before  appealed.  All  the  four  or  five  score 
of  child-welfare  agencies  must  and  will  be  correlated  with  the 


INTRODUCTION  xm 

school  and  directed  from  one  central  bureau,  so  that  each 
child  can  be  placed  just  where  in  the  whole  system  it  will 
get  the  most  good.  Each,  too,  will  not  only  be  inspected  med- 
ically and  morally,  but  studied  for  vocational  aptitudes.  If 
the  reforms  that  are  now  possible,  or  even  those  that  now 
seem  imminent,  are  really  effected,  these  volumes,  instead  of 
being  the  pedagogy  of  the  future,  will  ere  long  become  that 
of  the  past.  That  they  may  soon  become  so  is  my  most 
earnest  hope. 

For  twenty-five  years  I  have  lectured  Saturday  mornings 
to  teachers  and  to  students  upon  Education,  and  this  book  is 
the  final  revision  of  parts  of  this  course  up  to  date,  ending 
February,  191 1.  The  result  is  not  unlike  Uncle  Tobey's  coat, 
made  over  and  over,  part  by  part,  with  not  only  new  fabrics, 
but  new  fashions,  so  that  nothing  to  suggest  the  original  re- 
mains. During  these  years  I  find  that  I  have  given  over  seven 
hundred  outside  addresses  on  educational  subjects,  to  all  kinds 
of  audiences,  and  written  several  score  of  magazine  articles  and 
have  drawn  freely  upon  all  this  material,  although  the  chapters 
as  they  here  stand  have  been  newly  written  and  recast  within 
the  last  ten  months,  with  the  printer  at  my  heels,  so  that  I 
have  not  been  able  to  observe  the  obviously  proper  order  of 
chapters. 

Besides  my  constant  indebtedness  to  the  Librarian  of 
Clark  University,  Dr.  Louis  N.  Wilson,  who  has  helped  me 
to  find  and  procured  from  a  distance  many  references,  I  am 
under  special  obligation  to  Dr.  Theodate  L.  Smith,  who  has 
critically  read  all  the  manuscript  as  well  as  the  proof  of  the 
second  volume  and  suggested  various  improvements  and  addi- 
tions. I  am  also  under  unusual  obligations  to  Miss  Helen 
Cashman,  who  has  typographed,  read,  and  revised  a  large 
part  of  the  manuscript  and  proof  and  prepared  the  authors' 
index;  also  to  my  pupils  in  Education  for  the  use  of  their 
printed,  and  occasionally  unprinted,  theses,  of  which  I  have 
often  made  free  use. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

VOLUME   I 

PACE 

Introduction ••       .       .        v-xiii 

CHAPTER    I 
The  Pedagogy  of  the  Kindergarten i 

CHAPTER    n 
The  Educational  Value  of  Dancing  and  Pantomime  .       .       42 

CHAPTER    HI 
The  Pedagogy  of  Music     ,       . 91 

CHAPTER    IV 

The   Religious   Training   of   Children    and   the    Sunday- 
School      ' 136 

CHAPTER    V 
Moral  Education 200 

CHAPTER    VI. 
Children's  Lies:  Their  Psychology  and  Pedagogy       .       .     345 

CHAPTER    VH 
The  Pedagogy  of  Sex 388 

CHAPTER   VHI 
Industrial  Education 540 

XV 


EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 


2.  3^  Sd 
CHAPTER    I 

THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  THE  KINDERGARTEN 

The  ideal  kindergarten — Its  value  as  a  school  for  educating  young  women 
— Need  of  enlarging  the  scope  of  training  schools — Froebel  as  a  seer 
anticipating  modern  ideals — Froebel's  defects — Lack  of  competent 
criticism — Need  and  lack  of  child  study  for  the  kindergarten  age — 
Violations  of  Froebel's  spirit  in  the  modern  kindergarten — Some 
specific  reforms  needed — Need  of  transcending  Froebelian  limitations 
— Burk's  experiments  with  free  play — Miss  Blow's  criticism  of  Miss 
Dopp,  Dewey,  and  Hall — The  kindergarten  in  Europe — Relations  to 
the  day  nursery — The  progressive  and  conservative  schools. 

The  more  advanced  the  student  and  the  more  specialized 
the  teaching  the  less  pedagogy  and  genetic  educational  philos- 
ophy figure.  In  higher  mathematics,  astronomy,  philology  and 
the  rest,  the  method  is  the  logic  of  the  science  itself;  and  the 
arts  of  adaptation  to  ages  and  individuals  play  a  small  role. 
But,  as  we  go  down  the  scale  of  age  or  of  intelligence,  and  as 
the  interval  between  the  knowledge  and  mental  development  of 
the  teacher  on  the  one  hand  and  the  taught  on  the  other  in- 
creases, the  proportion  of  method  to  subject  matter  also 
increases.  In  teaching  infants  and  still  more  in  educating  idi- 
ots and  animals,  as  is  now  often  done  in  the  laboratory,  we 
must  not  only  elementarize  the  subject  but  know  and  gauge 
the  capacities  of  those  we  teach.  Thus  the  younger  the  pupils 
the  more  we  must  study  them  to  adjust :  and  the  more  general 
the  culture  to  be  imparted,  the  more  we  need  to  ktiow  and 
utilize  the  laws  of  the  deepest  philosophy  of  life.  When  this 
latter  is  entirely  undeveloped,  we  must  fall  back  on  instinct 
and  intuition,  vague  and  ambiguous  though  their  deliverances 
may  be.  To  guide  ourselves  in  the  development  of  the  very 
earliest  stages  of  infancy,  we  can  thus  do  little  but  stand  aside 
out  of  Nature's  way,  and  follow  the  promptings  of  parental 


2  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

/love,  or  at  best  muse,  brood,  and  consult  the  inner  oracle  of 
V  affection  for  the  direction  of  our  care-taking.  These  consider- 
tions,  pertinent  at  every  stage  of  education  and  history,  where 
pedagogical  theory  and  practice  have  advanced  down  the  age 
scale  toward  the  nursery,  and  even  into  it,  are  nowhere  so 
necessary  as  in  considering  Froebel,  whose  nebulous  specula- 
•  tions  were  bred  by  the  Zeitgeist  in  the  natal  age  of  German 
philosophy,  and  also  by  the  great  idealistic  movement  which 
accompanied  the  birth  of  this  puissant  nation.  His  weird  and 
bizarre  version  of  this  metaphysical  ferment  was  a  unique 
"  culture  bouillon  "  concocted  of  various  ingredients :  theo- 
sophic  mysticism,  foregleams  of  evolution,  passionate  enthusi- 
asm for  nature  just  as  the  great  scientific  movement  was 
dawning,  and  love  of  children  based  largely  upon  self-pity  for 
the  pathos  of  his  own  childhood,  a  motive  that  has  prompted 
so  many  of  the  great  founders  of  educational  institutions  to 
provide  opportunities  for  subsequent  generations  to  emanci- 
pate themselves  from  the  ignorance  that  had  handicapped  their 
own  lives.  Perhaps  these  very  defects  have  made  Froebel's 
"  Education  of  Man,"  which  to  adepts  in  the  psychological 
disciplines  has  always  seemed  a  nondescript  medley  and  con- 
flation of  unorganized  apergus  (a  really  unreadable  book  with 
seven  seals,  though  it  is),  one  of  the  best  and  most  nourishing 
of  all  infant  foods  for  novices  in  the  speculative  field,  a  book 
which  will  and  should  always  be  dear  to  women's  souls,  not  so 
much  for  what  it  teaches  their  intellect,  as  because  it  makes 
them  feel  so  profoundly  the  burden  of  the  mystery  of  the  nas- 
cent soul,  the  greatest  miracle  of  life,  and  the  sanctity  of  the 
offices  of  ministration  to  it,  and  shows  that  this  insight  and 
function  are  central  and  cardinal  in  the  universe.^ 

I. — The  very  term  "  Kindergarten  "  is  multifariously  sug- 
gestive and  its  every  possible  meaning  is  charming.  Froebel 
may  well  have  cried  "  Eureka  "  when,  after  long  quest  for  a 
fit  name,  he  hit  upon  this,  for  it  is  an  apt  symbol  of  his  type  of 
mind  as  well  as  of  the  pedagogic  endeavor  of  his  life.  It  may 
signify  a  garden  for,  or  a  park  of,  children,  themselves  re- 
garded as  the  consummate  flowers  of  nature;  or  even  as  a 


'  See  the  interesting  Chapter  VIII  on  Froebel,  in  Dr.  T.  Misawa's  Modem 
Educators  and  their  Ideals,  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  N.  Y.,  1909. 


THE   PEDAGOGY    OF   THE    KINDERGARTEN  3 

paradise  fit  to  be  the  scene  not  of  the  creation  of  the  first  mature 
human  pair,  but  the  ideal  setting  or  larger  nest  for  children 
to  be  born  and  grow  in.  Flowers  and  trees  are  vastly  older 
than  mankind  and  have  been  worshiped  at  a  certain  stage 
by  probably  every  race,  of  which  they  were  perhaps  the  first 
educational  environment,  idealized  always  afterwards  in  folk- 
lore, myth,  and  song.  Once  every  flower  was  a  symbol  or  or- 
acle, and  plants  bore  the  signatures  of  planets  and  spoke  a 
language  of  their  own  to  the  heart,  while  the  trees,  the  abodes 
of  men's  ancient  forebears,  meant  shelter  or  aspiration,  ways 
leading  up  to  the  abodes  of  the  gods.  Groves,  as  man's  first 
temples,  where  Druids  felt  most  strongly  the  sensus  numinis 
haunted  by  Dryads  and  herbs  that  sustained  life  before  the 
dawn  of  agriculture,  which  marked  the  first  settled  modus 
Vivendi  of  the  race  and  also  the  rise  of  human  dominion  over 
vegetal  life,  suggest  precisely  the  Arcadia  where  alone  child- 
hood is  really  at  home  or  in  its  world.  Again,  a  garden  is  both 
useful  and  ornamental  and  in  it  nature  and  nurture,  from  the 
time  of  the  very  first  bower  or  home,  have  conspired  to  do 
their  very  best  in  the  botanical,  as  education  should  in  the 
animal,  kingdom  of  man ;  so  that  it  is  prophetic  of  the  time 
when  man  shall  control  the  evolution  of  his  own  species  as  he 
has  learned  to  domesticate  and  improve  all  the  cultivated  ce- 
reals and  shrubs  that  blossom  and  bear  seed  and  fruit. 

Thus  the  very  word  "  children-garden  "  takes  us  to  a  region] 
of  the  soul  deep  and  rankly  rich  with  felted  and  unanalyzable 
thoughts,  feelings,  and  impulses,  that  are  very  strong  but  of  1 
a  very  primitive  type.  It  suggests  a  new  setting  for  childhood,J 
its  rescue  from  an  artificial  to  its  pristine  state,  at  a  time  when 
fit  environment  is  not  only  the  best  background  for,  but  by 
far  the  most  potent  and  central  of,  all  the  influences  of  educa- 
tion. Perhaps  some  time,  when  the  reaction  from  the  present 
urban  and  suburban  conditions  is  complete  and  all  schools  are 
in  the  country  (as  increasing  transportation  facilities — trol- 
leys, autos  and,  perhaps  before  we  know  it,  flying  machines — 
may  make  practicable),  and  when  the  school-garden  movement 
shall  have  done  its  |)erfect  work,  our  near  posterity,  if  not  we, 
may  realize  this  entrancing  ideal  of  the  reunion  of  the  heart 
of  childhood  with  the  heart  of  nature.  One  need  not  be  a 
bucolic  poet,  a  landscape  gardener,  a  horticulturist,  or  even  a 


4  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

trained  agriculturist  to  revel  in  imaginings  of  what  a  scenic 
farm  school  the  great  all-mother  Nature  has  made  possible  for 
the  early  stages  of  human  life.  Would  that  pedagogues  were 
occasionally  inclined  to  see  visions  and  dream  dreams,  instead 
of  being  as  a  class  the  most  conservative,  prosaic,  and  plodding, 
if  not  just  now,  under  the  dominion  of  modern  modes  of  super- 
vision in  this  country,  the  most  servile,  of  all  half-skilled  labor- 
ers. Walks,  beds,  hothouses,  nurseries,  lawns,  playgrounds, 
shade,  brooks,  ponds,  fertilizing,  seed  time  and  harvest,  mois- 
ture and  drought,  grafting,  budding,  cross-fertilization  by 
insects,  the  lessons  of  the  soil,  play  in  stone  fields  and  snow 
and  ice,  tree  setting,  with  arbor-day  functions,  cutting  and 
lumbering,  sugaring,  all  the  impressive  lessons  of  the  proces- 
sional of  the  seasons  with  carefully  chosen  animal  and  bird 
life  which  means  so  much  to  children,  learning  and  being 
taught  on  foot  and  out  of  doors  and  from  objects,  not  from 
words  or  even  pictures — such  is  Nature's  pedagogium.  Of 
nearly  every  item  of  her  curriculum  we  rob  the  child  during 
his  most  impressionable  years  when  the  soul  is  most  plastic  to 
her  influences,  shut  children  indoors,  teach  them  in  droves  for 
years  the  attenuated  and  desiccated  three  R's,  that  they  may 
learn  to  con  books  and  newspapers  and,  above  all,  to  figure. 
We  pay  a  terrible  price  for  this  education.  We  often  succeed  in 
immunizing  the  child  from  experiences  natural  to  his  age.  We 
rear  him  in  ignorance  of  and  isolate  him  from  contact  with  the 
great  influences  that  have  made  man  man.  Thus,  with  all  our 
precautions,  we  make  wizened  souls  in  wizened  bodies  by  kid- 
naping the  child  from  his  only  true  and  real  home  which  God 
has  decreed  and  Nature  has  prepared  for  him. 

Only  in  its  normal  environment  as  above  can  we  study  the 
real  child.  Here  he  can  live  out  all  that  is  in  him,  without  the 
repressions  which  in  the  most  emancipated  child  are  so  many, 
so  dwarfing  and  often  so  indescribably  pathetic,  especially  for 
girls.  I  am  convinced  that  the  civilized  world  has  missed  one 
of  the  most  marvelous  and  inspiring  of  all  spectacles :  viz.,  the 
normal  young  child  growing  psychically  all  it  is  capable  of 
growing,  from  within  out,  by  leaps  and  bounds.  This  even  the 
growth  curve  of  the  brain  suggests  as  normal  were  the  child 
only  rightly  circumstanced.  Our  bepedagogued  world  has 
little  conception  of  what  education  can  be  and  do.     In  his 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   THE   KINDERGARTEN  5 

concept  of  nature  as  the  child's  nurse,  mother,  and  teacher, 
even  Rousseau  was  a  palHd  and  shut-in  convalescent,  just  be- 
ginning wistfully  to  dream  and  think  out  of  doors.  Oh,  for 
one  really  ideal  kindergarten  in  the  world  to  demonstrate  all 
this  to  carping  and  incredulous  pedagogues  with  their  distorted 
and  mean  ideas  of  children,  and  their  dense  ignorance  of  their 
deeper  nature  and  their  possibilities!  It  would  cost  much 
money;  but  how  can  the  wealth  and  service  in  the  world  be 
better  spent  than  in  restoring  children  to  Nature  and  opening 
wide  rather  than  shutting  the  doors  of  opportunity  and  in- 
centive for  observation,  language,  self-activity,  all-sided  in- 
terest, true  race  recapitulation,  hygiene,  the  preformation  of  the 
soul  for  virtue,  religion,  social  and  industrial  efficiency — all  of 
which  languish  in  the  four  walls  of  the  schoolroom  where 
children  are  caged  like  wild  animals  in  captivity,  until  the 
gamey  flavor  of  the  open  and  the  call  of  the  wild  within  them, 
and  their  most  inalienable  rights  to  Nature  are  lost. 

Little  of  all  this  was  ever  formulated  in  Froebel's  mind; 
but  reverberations  in  this  direction  were  always  felt  in  his 
heart,  animating  and  inspiring  him.  Far  as  he  fell  below  such 
an  idea  at  every  point,  nevertheless  it  quickened  his  work  from 
start  to  finish.  He  wrought  only  with  country  children,  and 
never  dreamed  of  the  wholesale  transportation  of  his  system 
to  the  city,  from  the  poor  to  the  rich;  the  limitation  of  it  to 
two  or  three  hours  for  at  most  five  days  a  week ;  the  academi- 
cization  of  his  theories  in  university  chairs,  or  the  over- 
specialization  to  which  child  care  has  been  subjected  so  that  to- 
day the  kindergarten  is  only  one  of  some  forty  other  types  of 
child-welfare  institutions  as  we  classify  them  here;  nor  did  he 
dream  of  the  development  of  an  intolerant  Froebelian  ortho- 
doxy, suspicious  of  the  new  departures  and  innovations  that 
are  so  indispensable  for  progress,  or  the  development  of  con- 
servative and  radical  parties,  or  the  isolation  of  his  methods 
in  infant  grades  so  that  he  has  influenced  no  other  stages  or 
kinds  of  education  and  there  is  an  often  abrupt  break  between 
them  and  the  earliest  school  classes. 

II. — Turning  now  from  children  to  teachers,  we  confront 
another  great  ideal  that  Froebel  far  more  faintly  glimpsed. 
In  our  Western  civilization,  a  large  and  growing  proportion 
of  young  women  who  have  reached  an  age  where  Nature  in- 


6  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

tended  them  to  be  mothers,  are  by  circumstance  or  by  their 
own  choice  unwed  and  childless.  Ehrenfels,  in  several  recent 
publications,  has  attracted  great  attention  in  Germany  by  urg- 
ing that  China  and  Japan  will  eventually  surpass  and  overcome 
the  Western  nations  because,  in  the  former,  practically  every 
woman  of  fertile  age  is  actually  bearing  children,  while  in  the 
latter  a  large  proportion  of  women,  during  their  whole,  and 
especially  during  the  best  earlier  years  of  their  maturity,  are 
exempted  from  motherhood,  as  well  as  because  in  the  West 
more  wives  are  barren  than  in  the  East,  and  more  who  perform 
the  maternal  function  do  so  imperfectly.  If  now  we  survey  the 
occupations  of  the  vast  army  of  American  young  women,  who 
are  not  contributing  to  the  population,  but  who  are  in  shops,  as 
well  as  office  girls,  teachers,  and  the  long  list  of  those  in  wage- 
earning  vocations  open  to  young  women — we  find  that  few,  if 
any  of  these  occupations,  unless  that  of  nurse,  are  better  cal- 
culated to  keep  alive  and  develop  more  of  the  potentialities  of 
motherhood  or  to  vicariate  for  its  functions  than  the  kinder- 
garten can  and  should  do.  Few  occupations  in  which  women 
engage  unfit  less  for  family  life  or  involve  less  change  of  spirit 
and  ideals  if  marriage  comes.  The  very  contact  with  young 
children,  if  not  mechanized  as  in  the  grades,  tends  to  keep 
women  cheery,  fresh,  young,  original,  and  healthful  in  soul 
and  body.  If  society  makes  ladies,  the  college,  scholars,  the 
industries,  managers  or  higher  servants,  the  kindergarten 
makes  women  and  gives  those  who  w'ould  and  should  become 
mothers  one  of  the  very  best  substitutes  for  this  function  and 
preserves  the  best  there  is  in  young  or  even  in  aging  maiden- 
hood. 

This  by  no  means  implies  that  existing  kindergarten  train- 
ing schools  provide  this  optimal  preparation  or  succedaneum,  as 
some  of  them  advertise  to  do,  for  their  courses  are  often  formal, 
intellectual,  and  of  late  frequently  too  academic.  Oversophis- 
tication  here  may  actually  enfeeble  or  pervert  the  maternal 
instinct ;  and  there  is  a  type  of  scholastic  old-maidishness  that 
is  positively  dangerous  for  young  maidenhood  in  the  glory  of 
its  first  maturity,  the  touch  of  which  tends  to  wither  and  breed 
distrust  of  the  best  things  in  the  soul,  because  it  generates  re- 
pression, prim  proprieties,  and  self-consciousness  rather  than 
all-sided  expansion  and  expression.     Thus  with  its  large  and 


THE   PEDAGOGY    OF   THE   KINDERGARTEN  7 

growing  army  of  acolytes,  the  kindergarten  should  now  seek 
as  a  function,  second  only  to  doing  the  most  and  best  for  young 
children,  to  do  the  most  and  best  for  young  women  in  training 
and  in  the  ranks.  Thus  a  new  and  not  yet  adequately  recog- 
nized duty  is  now  laid  upon  us — to  provide  maiden  pro- 
bationaries  for  motherhood,  with  such  ideal  environment 
and  occupations  as  will  make  them  true  mothers  in  heart 
and  soul  because  lovers  and  servers  of  children.  Between 
the  soul  of  the  child  from  three  to  six  and  the  soul  of  the  young 
woman  in  the  middle  and  later  twenties  and  the  early  thirties, 
there  is  a  strong,  native  rapport,  deeper  than  anything  educa- 
tion can  supply.  Each  responds  to  the  other  in  a  way  that  even 
genetic  psychology  is  only  just  learning  to  appreciate.  This 
interval  of  age  remains  a  constant  one  of  maximal  efficiency 
as  woman  and  child  advance  in  years.  Just  as  babies  keep  even 
an  aging  mother  young  in  soul,  so  kindergartners  are  kept 
juvenile  in  mind  and  no  doubt  also  in  body  by  daily,  homey 
converse  with  children.  This  age  correlation  and  the  rejuvena- 
tion caused  by  life  with  childhood  are  now  looming  up  as  great 
themes,  which  but  for  our  limits  in  space  should  have  fuller 
treatment  here. 

Many  now  tell  us  that  just  the  physical  handling  of  chil- 
dren at  this  age  when  they  still  need  considerable  manipulation 
is  far  more  essential  than  we  are  wont  to  think  for  their  best 
development.  But  here,  too,  there  is  a  correlative  advantage, 
and  the  kindergartner  should,  for  her  own  good,  care  much  for 
the  bodily  needs  of  her  charges.  She  should  not  merely  direct 
gifts  and  occupations,  tell  stories  and  lead  games  and  songs, 
but  at  least  occasionally  wash,  comb,  dress,  feed,  and  otherwise 
stand  as  completely  as  possible  in  the  mother's  place,  use  her 
hands  upon  the  child  in  every  helpful  way  and  have  a  prag- 
matic interest  in  shoes,  stockings,  cap,  hat,  food,  drink,  buttons, 
etc. ;  be  and  do  sometimes  all  that  a  nurse  can  be  and  do ;  recog- 
nize that  the  child's  bodily  needs  are  as  great  as  perhaps  and 
paramount  in  importance  to.  the  needs  of  its  soul,  so  that  often 
those  that  do  most  for  the  physical  do  most  for  the  psychic  and 
the  moral.  Without  this  her  very  love  for  the  child  is  incom- 
|)lete,  as  are  her  ministrations ;  and  there  is  loss  l^oth  to  her  and 
to  the  child.  With  the  nursery  age  and  needs,  there  must  l^e 
nursery  functions.  How  can  a  woman  possibly  love  and  serve  a 


8  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

young  child  whose  body  she  does  not  know  and  minister  to  in 
every  intimate  and  necessary  way?  If  she  regards  this  as 
degrading,  and  aspires  to  be  a  mentor  to  the  soul  only,  she  is 
dematernalizing  her  own  soul  to  some  extent  and  orphanizing 
the  child  and  impairing  its  psycho-physic  unity.  Thus  nothing 
affecting  the  welfare  of  the  child  at  this  age  should  be  foreign 
to  her  interests  or  helpfulness. 

Now  combine  this  concept  of  the  teacher  with  that  of  the 
outdoor  functions  suggested  above,  and  we  shall  realize  that 
the  ideal  kindergartner  should  introduce  the  child  to  Nature  and 
social  life.  She  must  know  something  of  the  lore  of  beasts, 
birds,  flowers,  and  trees.  Her  Nature  should  be  breezy  with 
out  of  doors,  and  bring  the  spirit  of  Nature  in  and  take  the 
child  to  it.  The  ideal  test  of  her  work  would  be  what  she 
could  do  with  a  band  of  children  in  such  an  environment  as  I 
described  above  or  in  a  day  spent  in  rambles  over  and  gambols 
through  gardens  and  groves,  by  water,  amidst  the  fall  of 
leaves,  or  among  the  most  edifying  flora  and  fauna.  The 
ideal  kindergartner  should  know  and  feel  and  love  Nature  and 
stand  in  heart-to-heart  relations  with  her,  and  be  able  to  ex- 
pose the  child  to  all  of  the  influences  to  which  it  is  susceptible. 
This  should  be  first  and  foremost  and  the  more  special  indoor 
work  should  be  developed  on  this  basis.  She  should  seek 
health  in  all  its  new  loftier  meanings  and  strive  to  reproduce 
and  keep  alive  in  herself  the  first  fresh  thoughts  and  experi- 
ences of  the  race,  and  impart  them  to  the  children  in  their  most 
receptive  periods. 

Thus,  I  would  greatly  enlarge  the  scope  of  nature  study  in 
kindergarten  training  schools.  Our  forebears  for  countless 
ages  knew  no  other  teacher  than  Nature,  and  to  all  the  notes 
and  harmonies  in  her  magnificent  symphony,  the  soul  is  attuned 
in  childhood,  and  if  the  chords  are  not  smitten  betimes,  there  is 
grave  loss.  I  would  not  entirely  exclude  the  gifts  and  occupa- 
tions, but  they  should  be  once  for  all  completely  subordinated 
and  relegated  to  a  very  small  place  in  the  kindergarten  as  com- 
pared to  nature  work.  The  latter  should  be  of  a  unique  and 
not  yet  quite  adequately  appreciated  kind.  Popular  science  and 
the  work  of  the  naturalist  afield  may  nourish  the  kindergart- 
ner's  soul  but.  what  is  more  central  in  her  needs,  I  have 
attempted  elsewhere  to  describe  (cf.  my  Adolescence,  chapter 


THE    PEDAGOGY   OF    THE    KINDERGARTEN  9 

XII,  Adolescent  Feelings  Toward  Nature  and  a  New  Educa- 
tion in  Science).  The  great  themes  and  categories  here  are: 
sky,  stars,  sun,  moon,  clouds,  thunder,  water  in  its  various 
forms — sea  and  shore,  lake  and  river — wind,  fire,  insects  and 
their  most  marvelous  instincts,  such  as  cross-fertilization,  their 
modes  of  producing  and  rearing  their  young,  etc.,  plants  and 
animal  types  and,  highest  of  all,  primitive  men  and  children, 
popularizing  results  of  anthropology.  These  should  be  felt 
and  told  of,  sometimes  in  a  more  or  less  mystic  way,  so  as  to 
stir  the  ancestral  reverberations  which  bring  a  regenerative 
vital  touch  between  the  child  soul  and  that  of  the  race,  which 
once  and  somewhere  worshiped  all  these  objects,  making  them 
of  supreme  value  and  of  most  vital  interest.  On  such  themes 
and  their  ramifications  in  myth  and  story,  the  kindergartner 
should  nourish  her  soul  and  recognize  that,  to  nothing  that 
vitally  stirs  her,  will  the  child's  soul  be  unresponsive.  Some- 
thing like  this  is  the  religious  background  out  of  which  all 
human  culture  grew,  for  religion,  science,  art,  and  literature 
came  forth  out  of  the  heart  of  Nature.  This  is  the  all-condi- 
tioning, all-impelling  interest  that  motivates  every  form  of  edu- 
cation that  is  truly  vital.  This,  too,  normalizes  as  well  as 
elevates,  broadens,  and  enriches  the  emotional  life  of  young 
womanhood  as  nothing  else  can,  and  keeps  sentiment  safe- 
guarded against  relapse  to  sentimentality.  Just  as  only  the 
woman's  soul  knows  what  flowers  really  mean,  so  she  is  better 
fitted  than  man  to  give  the  most  sound,  human  response  to 
Nature's  primitive  teachings,  which  fit  her  heart  as  nothing 
that  our  academic  curriculum  offers  can  do. 

In  fine,  I  would  have  all  kindergartners  trained  chiefly  in 
this  type  of  nature  study,  focusing  in  the  study  of  childhood. 
We  need  not  entirely  exclude  the  quaint  philosophy  of  Froebel, 
nor  his  pedagogical  technic;  for  these,  especially  the  former, 
are  not  entirely  without  value  for  that  ideal  education  of  young 
womanhood  toward  which  the  world  is  now  groping.  But,  if 
anything  is  now  plain  in  this  obscure  field,  it  is  that  Nature 
must  be  chiefly  stressed  as  the  source  of  all  other  intellectual 
and  moral  interests.  Child-study,  as  it  has  now  taken  form, 
promises  to  be  the  best  logical,  genetic,  and  pedagogic  focus 
of  all  the  sciences  that  deal  with  life.  When  wc  reduce  human 
institutions — home,   school,   state,   church — to   their   ultimate 


lO  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

raison  d'etre,  we  find  that  their  value  is  always  measured  by 
their  service  in  bringing  the  successive  generations  to  birth  and 
to  the  highest  and  best  maturity  possible.  The  child  is  the 
focus  of  interest  for  every  kind  of  social  and  humanistic  study. 
Thus  we  reach  the  dual  goal  of  culture — Nature  and  the  child, 
or  the  child  fitly  set  in  its  paradise.  These  are  the  cores  of  the 
best  education  which  has  or  ever  can  be  devised  for  young 
women  and  this,  as  I  believe,  conservative  kindergarten  wise- 
acres to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  is,  if  we  interpret  his 
letter  by  his  spirit,  precisely  "  according  to  Froebel,"  who  in 
the  practical  realization  of  his  ideals  fell  far  below  them,  as,  in- 
deed, most  of  us  do. 

III. — Coming  now  to  Froebel  himself,  I  desire  to  state  at  the 
outset  that  I  have  read  almost  every  printed  word  of  his,  have 
visited  many  scores  of  kindergartens  at  home  and  abroad,  gave 
lately  a  university  year  of  Saturday  lectures  upon  this  system, 
issued  a  questionnaire  concerning  points  doubtful  to  my  mind 
which  was  copiously  answered  by  many  of  its  best  representa- 
tives, have  always  had  one  or  more  kindergarten  conferences 
at  the  Clark  University  Summer  School,  with  one  at  our  Child 
Welfare  Convention  in  July,  1909,  and  have  gathered  and  pe- 
rused quite  a  literature  upon  this  subject.  This  it  is  necessary 
to  premise,  because  the  stock  answer  of  kindergartners,  like 
that  of  the  theosophists,  epistemologists,  faith  curists,  Em- 
manuelists,  etc.,  is  that  the  critics  do  not  understand  the  system ; 
and  if,  in  what  follows,  my  limitations  are  painfully  apparent, 
I  wish  to  be  credited  with  at  least  an  honest  desire  and  a  real 
effort  to  overcome  them.  Although  I  see  people,  whom  my 
egotism  leads  me  to  think  not  very  much  more  gifted  or  better 
informed  than  I,  walking  with  such  sure  steps  where  I  tremble, 
doubt,  and  fear,  and  saying,  as  apologists  for  existing  condi- 
tions, such  transcendentally  wise  and  beautiful  things  that  I 
often  cannot  understand,  I,  nevertheless,  cannot  forbear  feeling 
some  slight  trepidation  lest  I  am  about  to  expose  some  grave 
mental  weakness  or  constitutional  deficiency. 

Again,  let  me  premise  that  I  believe  heart  and  soul  in  the 
kindergarten  as  I  understand  it,  and  insist  that  I  am  a  true 
disciple  of  Froebel,  that  my  orthodoxy  is  the  real  doxy  which, 
if  Froebel  could  now  come  to  New  York,  Chicago,  Worcester, 
or  even  to  Boston,  he  would  approve.    His  was  one  of  the  deep- 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   THE   KINDERGARTEN  n 

est,  truest,  and  most  intuitive  of  minds.  His  heart  was  one  of 
the  most  devoted  to  be  found  in  the  whole  history  of  education. 
It  might  also  be  a  watchword  of  most  educational  reforms  now 
needed  to  carry  the  Froebelian  spirit,  as  its  author  intended 
to  do,  up  through  all  the  grades  of  school  work,  including 
even  the  university.  We  need  to  organize  a  systematic  work  of 
rescuing  Froebel  from  the  now,  or  at  least  till  very  lately,  dom- 
inant conservative  wing  of  his  American  disciples. 

Again,  so  far  as  my  acquaintance  and  personal  impressions 
go,  kindergartners  are  perhaps,  on  the  whole,  if  not  the  most 
womanly  and  motherly  representatives  of  their  sex  to  be  found 
in  modern  society,  as  I  have  said  they  ought  to  be,  at  least 
second  to  no  other  class  of  women  in  this  respect.  Some  of 
them  come  from  the  best  and  some  from  other  classes  of  society, 
but  all  are  drawn  to  the  work  by  the  truest  and  highest  instincts. 
There  is  more  love  of  children,  more  sympathy  with,  and  more 
practical  knowledge  of  them  in  the  kindergarten  as  it  exists 
to-day,  than  in  any  other  grade  of  education ;  and  its  repre- 
sentatives are  eminently  lovable  and  marriageable.  No  better 
training  for  wifehood  and  domestic  life  has  ever  been  devised 
where  the  ideal  is  approached.  As  a  rule,  those  young  women 
who  seem  by  nature  distinctly  set  apart  for  celibate  life,  and  for 
the  high  services  of  philanthropy  now  open  to  women  in  private 
and  public  spheres,  are  not  found  here.  Parental  instincts  are 
the  best  motive  power  at  this  stage,  as  they  should  be  at  all 
stages,  of  education.  I  believe,  too,  that  American  kindergart- 
ners really  want  the  truth,  that  they  are  naturally  rather  more 
open-minded  than  most  women  teachers  of  higher  grades,  and 
that  the  presupposition  of  common  sense  as  a  basis  of  appeal 
is  on  the  whole  a  pretty  safe  one  with  them. 

What,  now,  are  some  of  the  great  ideas  which  the  educa- 
tional world  owes  in  whole  or  in  part  to  Froebel?  I  think  they 
may  be  listed  as  follows : 

I. — He  was  the  first,  before  even  embryology  had  pointed 
out  the  fact,  to  teach  that  the  child  repeats  the  history  of  the 
race,  recapitulating  its  stages.  This  is  now  one  of  the  key- 
notes of  genetic  psychology,  which  ought  to  make  it  a  welcome 
friend,  and  not  a  suspected  visitor,  in  the  kindergarten  meetings 
and  journals. 

2. — Feeling  and  instinct  are  the  germs  of  intellect  and  the 


12  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

will.  Schleiermacher,  and  later  Horwicz,  and  recently  most  of 
the  best  psychologists  and  alienists  lay  great  stress  upon  this 
primacy  of  the  heart ;  and  just  now  geneticists  everywhere  are 
reaffirming  the  doctrine  that  the  higher  mental  powers  are 
evolved  out  of  the  larger  life  of  feeling  and  emotion  or  affec- 
tivity. 

3. — Froebel  taught  self-activity  and  spontaneity,  and  that 
play  was  one  of  the  great  revealers  of  the  direction  of  inherent 
interest  and  capacity.  He  first  saw  that  if  the  play  instincts  are 
turned  on  as  the  great  motive  power  in  school,  far  more  can 
be  accomplished,  and  that  more  easily  and  with  less  strain. 
Man  must  create;  children  are  by  nature  abounding  in  the 
power  of  almost  divine  origination. 

4. — He  was  a  passionate  monist,  a  representative  of  the 
higher  pantheism,  God-intoxicated  almost  like  Cleanthes  and 
Spinoza,  He  was  in  the  true  apostolic  succession  of  those 
great  souls  whose  lives  were  expanded  and  directed  by  a  sense 
that  in  God  we  live,  move,  and  have  our  being.  He  was  the 
first  to  apply  to  education  these  pantheistic  conceptions,  which 
are  the  culmination  of  all  natural  religion,  which,  how- 
ever, it  need  hardly  be  said  are  neither  necessary  for,  nor 
common  in,  kindergarten  work.  Whatever  we  may  think  of 
his  creed,  this  inevitably  brought  with  it  new  standpoints  and 
new  methods. 

5. — He  believed  in  the  original  soundness  and  wholeness 
of  human  nature,  rather  than  in  Calvinistic  ideas  of  its  de- 
pravity, and  hence  abhorred  all  interfering,  or  radically  recon- 
structing, methods  of  education,  but  thought  the  latter  should 
be  always  developmental. 

6. — Almost  as  a  corollary  of  the  first  statement  he  exhorted 
that  every  child  should  be  at  each  stage  of  his  life  all  that  that 
stage  called  for.  He  must,  as  we  should  put  it,  use  the  rudi- 
mentary organs  of  his  mind — be  a  complete  animal,  if  there 
is  a  complete  animal  stage  of  childhood — as  the  conditio  sine 
qua  non  of  the  highest  maturity  on  the  human  plane  later.  The 
future  should  not  dominate;  and  adult  views  and  standards 
should  not  be  prematurely  enforced.  Youth  should  not  scorn 
boyhood,  nor  boyhood  infancy.  The  atmosphere  should  be 
pervaded  with  harmony,  love,  and  freedom. 

7, — We  must  all  live  for  and  with  the  children.     Indeed, 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   THE   KINDERGARTEN  13 

what  else  is  there  in  all  this  world  worth  living,  working-,  dying 
for?  We  adults  pass  on  after  we  have  transmitted  the  sacred 
torch  of  life ;  and  the  only  test  of  state,  home,  church,  school, 
or  civilization  is  whether  or  not  it  brings  childhood  and  youth 
to  the  fullest  possible  maturity. 

8. — He  believed  in  trusting  intuition,  and  not  in  the  elabo- 
rate methodology  which  whips  up  the  beer  of  knowledge  into 
a  froth,  puts  form  above  substance  and  content,  which  always 
analyzes  processes,  and  lets  no  operation  pass  without  demand- 
ing an  explanation.  The  child,  he  said,  is  a  seed  in  the  ground, 
which  does  not  see  the  sun  or  feel  the  rain  directly,  but  is  not 
unresponsive  to  every  change  of  temperature,  moisture,  or 
light.  "  The  unconsciousness  of  a  child  is  rest  in  God."  This 
saying  alone  shows  that  Froebel's  standpoint  was  not  inferior 
to  that  of  Wordsworth  in  his  famous  Ode,  and  that  he  dimly 
foresaw  the  work  that  has  been  done  lately  on  that  part  of  the 
soul  which  lies  below  the  threshold  of  consciousness,  but  from 
its  unfathomable  depths  rules  all  our  life. 

9. — Lastly.  I  shall  mention  Froebel's  belief  in  health.^  The 
child  is  a  plant,  a  vegetable,  and  must,  as  I  said  above,  live  out 
of  doors,  or  in  as  nearly  out-of-door  conditions  as  possible.  He 
realized  that  health  was  the  basis  and  test  of  all,  and  was  one 
of  the  morning  stars  of  the  new  hygiene.  * 

It  has  been  often  asked  where  Froebel  got  his  philosophical 
conceptions.  We  know  of  his  relations  to  Schelling,  Fichte, 
and  especially  Krause;  and  this  explains  much,  but  not  all  or 
even  the  best.  He  was  essentially  a  seer,  a  mystic,  a  deep- 
minded,  large-eyed  soul-gazer  wrestling  with  great  concep- 
tions, half  revealed  and  half  concealed  by  his  mode  of  expres- 
sion. It  is  painful  to  read  the  Jacob-like  wrestlings  of  his  soul 
with  the  angel  for  names,  words,  and  phrases,  and  how  often, 
after  mentally  gasping  and  gagging,  and  iterating,  perhaps 
tediously — until  we  almost  wish  he  had  taken  refuge  like  other 
mystics  in  snatches  of  some  unknown  tongue,  or,  like  Jahn, 
had    had    recourse    to    words    originally    invented — he    ex- 

'  I  cannot  refrain  from  referring  to  the  comprehensive  rcf)ort  on  National 
Vitality,  Bulletin  of  the  (^immittee  of  One  Hundred  on  National  Mialth.  by  Ir>'ing 
Fisher,  Government  Print.  OfTire,  July,  iQcq;  and  W.  H.  Allen's  Civics  and 
Health,  Ginn  &  Co.,  Boston,  1909,  to  suggest  the  present  dimensions  of  this 
subject. 


14  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

claims  that  it  is  all  too  deep,  and  feels  that  the  simplest  thing 
or  act  cannot  be  told. 

In  the  German  word  saiigen  (to  suck)  he  sees  s'augen  (to 
eye  oneself  or  come  to  self-knowledge)  ;  in  Shine  (or  sense) 
he  sees  s'inne,  with  an  intimation  of  reflecting  upon  oneself. 
From  this  aphasic  limitation  in  his  power  of  expression  come 
the  many  involutions,  the  tiresome  tautologies,  the  singular 
absence  of  humor  that  might  be  copiously  illustrated,  the  sense 
that  everything  is  iridescent  with  all  kinds  of  symbolic  mean- 
ings, the  obscurities  and  ambiguities  which  have  baffled  or 
divided  his  followers,  the  rhapsodizing  "  motive,"  and  his  dis- 
position, like  the  pseudo-Dionysius,  Boehme,  Eckhardt,  and 
other  deep,  but  inarticulate  souls,  to  see  everything  in  any- 
thing. He  needs  editing,  with  much  expurgation  of  repetitions 
and  judicious  explanation  of  obscurities. 

Moreover,  he  did  not  entirely  escape  the  limitations  of  his 
race,  which  at  that  time  was  eminently  unpractical.  His  early 
architectural  education,  his  study  and  curatorship  of  crystals, 
his  meager  mathematical  studies,  and  his  manual  labor,  all 
tended  more  or  less  to  give  definiteness  to  his  method  of 
mental  action;  but  his  training  was  essentially  in  inanimate 
nature.  Biology  was  then  quite  undeveloped.  He  was  largely 
color  blind ;  and  he  did  not  live  to  apply  his  methods  to  the 
higher  stages  of  education  which  know  him  not.  Had  his 
training  been  in  some  of  the  fields  of  study  which  deal  with 
practical  life,  and  had  he  had  the  advantages  of  the  many  lines 
of  work  which  nowadays  would  seem  to  give  a  better  founda- 
tion to  all  his  thought,  it  is  difficult  to  conjecture  what  the 
results  would  have  been ;  but  without  doubt  they  would  have 
been  very  different  and  better. 

Nearly  all  his  disciples  have  been  women,  most  of  them 
not  mothers,  but  of  an  age  when  a  certain  natural  void  which 
onl)''  family  life  can  fill,  makes  itself  felt.  I  believe  there  is 
nowhere  a  philosophy — nothing  even  that  can  be  made  out  of 
Delsartism,  mysticism,  Browning,  or  Nietzsche — so  funda- 
mentally wholesome  and  educating  for  young  women  at  a  cer- 
tain stage  as  Froebelism.  At  this  age  they  must  idealize,  and 
vicariously,  or,  by  the  law  of  kinetic  equivalents,  must  make, 
if  they  do  not  find,  objects  for  love,  enthusiasm,  and  devotion. 
Just  as  childless  monks  evoked  all  the  beauty  and  glory  of 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   THE   KINDERGARTEN  15 

Mariolatry,  so  I  am  inclined  to  think  we  see  the  faint  iDegin- 
nings  of  a  Froebelolatry  slowly  evolving  in  the  heart  of  this 
noblest  type  of  American  maidenhood.  And  just  as  the  mental 
activities  favored  by  monastic  life  developed  scholasticism,  so 
we  have  in  the  exiguous  symbolism  of  the  fully  'panoplied 
Froebelian  exegete  what  Balzac  would  call  a  human  document 
no  less  precious  for  studying  the  mental  tendencies  of  celibate 
life  among  cultured  women.  Thus,  while  Froebel  enlarged  and 
glorified  womanhood,  women  have  paid  the  debt  by  enlarging 
and  glorifying  him. 

It  is  singular  that  Froebel  has  hardly  had  a  thoroughly 
scholarly  and  critical  estimate,  although  I  do  not  forget  the 
many  eminent  critics  who  have  lately  summarized  and  passed 
judgment  upon  him.  He  has  had  eulogists  and  explanations 
galore;  his  philosophy  has  been  spun  out  in  many  directions 
by  ardent  apologists,  disciples,  and  worshipers;  but  the  over- 
whelming majority  not  only  of  kindergartners,  but  of  their 
leaders,  lack  university,  or  even  college,  training;  and  the  two 
or  three  ablest  and  best  trained  of  his  apostles  who  have  at- 
tained this  plane  of  culture  are  holophrastic  idealists  of  his  own 
camp,  not  trained  in  modern  psychology,  and  suspicious  of  it, 
and  disciples  of  the  overcome  standpoint  of  Hegel  and  his  ilk. 

Hence  it  comes  that  in  this  country  the  kindergartners  have 
been  till  lately  an  educational  sect  by  themselves.  They  have 
talked  of  kindergarten  principles  rather  than  of  educational 
principles ;  their  courses  of  study  have  dealt  very  little  with  the 
general  history  of  education ;  and  even  the  two  or  three  most 
learned  of  them  have  not  extended  their  interests  much  be- 
yond Schelling,  Fichte,  and  Kant.  Of  evolution,  a  type  of 
thought  in  which  Froebel  would  have  reveled  with  all  his  soul, 
they  have  known  little  and  cared  less.  The  extremely  able  lady 
who  has  so  long  dominated,  with  her  thought  and  powerful  per- 
sonality, the  entire  intellectual  field  of  the  American  kindergar- 
ten, almost  like  a  pope,  long  intimidated  every  dissenter,  and 
her  nearer  disciples  sought  to  suppress,  by  condemnation  and 
even  social  ostracism,  all  those  that  sought  to  breathe  a  freer 
and  larger  air:  while  so  overperfect  is  the  organization  of 
kindergartners  that  this  repression  was  long  generally  all  too 
effective.  Herbart  has  lately  been  felt  in  this  country  as  a  very 
valuable  intellectual  stimulus,  which  has  greatly  broadened  and 


i6  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

deepened  the  best  American  educational  thought ;  but  in  a  pro- 
nouncement a  few  years  since  kindergartners  were  warned  by 
this  leader  to  beware  of  him  and  all  his  ways  and  works,  be- 
cause, forsooth,  his  theories  of  the  nature  of  the  ego  were  not 
satisfactory  to  her. 

Perhaps  the  finest  kindergarten  installation  in  the  world 
to-day  is  the  magnificent  newly  built  and  endowed  Pestalozzi- 
Froebel  House,  in  the  outskirts  of  Berlin,  with  its  ample 
grounds,  individual  flower  beds,  fish  ponds,  wild  wood  for 
birds,  and  its  well-equipped  building  for  a  cooking  school. 
For  kindergartners  going  abroad  to  study,  it  is  altogether  the 
best  place.  A  few  years  ago  I  studied  it  with  rare  pleasure 
and  edification.  But  we  have  been  so  effectively  warned 
against  it  because  the  name  of  Pestalozzi  has  been  added  to 
that  of  Froebel,  that  I  found  only  one  American  woman  there — 
while  in  inferior  establishments  in  Germany  there  w^ere  many. 
At  this  place  the  gifts  and  occupations  have  been  reduced  to  a 
minimum,  and  are  gradually  being  abandoned  for  better  things. 
Nursing  and  cooking  are  included  in  the  training  course,  and 
so  is  the  general  history  of  education.  At  noon  the  younger 
children  are  put  to  sleep  on  floor  mattresses  in  the  gymnasium ; 
also  many  other  admirable  new  departures — most  neces- 
sary, but  which,  for  the  most  part,  are  disallowed  by  the 
American  orthodoxy — have  been  made. 

Again,  Froebel  was  the  morning  star  of  the  child-study 
movement,  and  would  have  rejoiced  to  see  its  day.  The  school 
referred  to  is  in  the  legitimate  line  of  Froebelian  descent,  at 
least  quite  as  much  as  the  conservative  American  school,  which 
looks  upon  it  with  so  much  suspicion.  Its  ideal  is  to  construct 
a  psychology  that  shall  be  really  genetic,  to  introduce  evolution 
into  the  sphere  of  mind,  and  to  make  everything  plastic  to  the 
nature  and  needs  of  the  child.  It  has  till  lately  received,  how- 
ever, but  the  faintest  recognition  from  the  body  of  kindergarten 
teachers,  was  for  a  long  time  generally  suspected,  and  its 
methods  and  results  were  almost  unknown  in  American  train- 
ing schools,  although,  as  we  shall  see,  the  newer  leaders  are 
changing  for  the  better  in  this  respect. 

The  most  decadent  intellectual  new  departure  of  the  con- 
servative American  Froebelists,  however,  is  the  emphasis  now 
laid  upon  the  mother  plays  as  the  acme  of  kindergarten  wis- 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  THE  KINDERGARTEN    17 

dom.  These  are  represented  by  very  crude  poems,  indifferent 
music,  and  pictures — the  hke  of  which  were  never  seen  in  any 
art  exhibit — illustrating  certain  incidents  of  child  life  believed 
to  be  of  fundamental  and  typical  significance.  1  have  read  these 
in  German  and  in  English,  have  strummed  the  music,  and  have 
given  a  brief  course  of  lectures  from  the  sympathetic  stand- 
point, trying  to  put  all  the  new  wine  of  meaning  I  could  think 
of  into  them.  But  I  am  driven  to  the  conclusion  that,  if  they 
are  not  positively  unwholesome  and  harmful  for  the  child,  and 
productive  of  anti-scientific  and  unphilosophical  intellectual 
habits  in  the  teacher,  they  should  nevertheless  be  superseded  by 
the  far  better  things  now  available.  I  grant  freely  that  they 
now  have  a  certain  advantage  of  position,  because  so  much 
meaning  has  accumulated  about  them;  but  the  positions  were 
badly  chosen,  the  mental  unities  are  artifacts,  and  everything 
has  to  be  radically  reconstructed  and  redistributed  as  the  mind 
unfolds.  The  mother  plays  are  related  to  the  more  standard 
parts  of  Froebel's  doctrine  somewhat  as  Comte's  later  specula- 
tions about  society — which  John  Stuart  Mill  thought  w^ere 
really  insane — are  related  to  the  sounder,  positive  dreameries 
of  his  earlier  years ;  so  that  the  kindergartners  who  follow  this 
direction  are  as  far  from  the  legitimate  succession  as  are  the 
Comteists  of  the  Stephen  Pearl  Andrews  type  from  Lass  and 
Comte's  true  French  line.  The  mother  play  Epigoni  illustrate 
in  petto  the  same  tendency  we  see  in  the  Peripatetics  after 
Aristotle,  or  the  later  academicians  in  the  decadence  of  Platon- 
ism  before  it  issued  in  the  vagaries  of  Proclus  and  Plotinus. 
It  would  be  easy  to  devote  this  article  to  the  apotheosis  of  sym- 
bolism here  presented,  which  deserves  a  place  in  Nordau's  lec- 
tures, on  degeneration,  and  to  show  how  the  symbolic  mode  of 
thought  has  been  transcended,  and  how  the  habit  of  seeing 
"everything  as  a  sign  to  be  interpreted"  is  a  vicious  one. 
Another  cardinal  error  of  the  conservative  kindergarten  is 
the  intensity  of  its  devotion  to  the  gifts  and  occupations.  In 
devising  these.  Froebel  showed  much  sagacity :  but  the  scheme 
as  it  left  his  own  hands  was  a  very  inadeciuate  embodiment  of 
his  educational  ideas,  even  for  his  own  time.  He  thought  it 
a  perfect  grammar  of  play  and  an  alphabet  of  industries ;  and 
in  this  opinion  he  was  utterly  mistaken.  Play  and  industry 
were  then  relatively  undeveloped;  and  while  his  devices  were 
8 


i8  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

no  doubt  beneficent  for  the  peasant  children  in  the  country, 
whom  he  taught,  they  lead,  in  the  interests  of  the  modern  city 
child,  a  very  pallid,  unreal  life.  For  the  symbolic  method  that 
finds  everything  in  everything,  any  random  selections  could 
readily  be  made  the  center  of  an  imposing  set  of  explanations. 

The  great  faults  of  the  gifts  and  occupations,  however,  are 
not  only  that  there  are  hundreds  of  other  things  that  would  do 
as  well ;  but  I  am  convinced  that  two  or  three  score  could  easily 
be  found  that  possess  great  natural  advantages  over  most,  if  not 
all,  of  these.  Moreover,  they  deal  with  inanimate  objects  and 
too  mathematical  conceptions,  while  this  is  the  age  when  the 
child's  interest  in  animals  culminates,  and  when  his  character 
is  pregnant  with  moral  suggestions  as  well  as  with  scientific 
interests.  They  are  also  overemphasized;  and  idolatry  of  the 
ball,  cube,  slats,  pricking,  peawork,  and  the  rest  makes  the 
kindergartner  not  only  indifferent  to  new  departures  in  the 
rapid  development  of  recent  times,  but  so  suspicious  of  novel- 
ties that  new  gifts  or  occupations  have  to  overcome  a  great 
presumption  against  them.  The  inner  connection  theory  and 
the  scheme  of  analyzing  to  a  point  and  then  developing  from  it 
are  fantastic  and  superficial;  and  it  is  persistently  forgotten 
that  the  meanings  seen  or  claimed  exist  solely  for  the  teacher 
and  not  at  all  for  the  child. 

Much  of  the  work  involves  a  great  waste  of  teaching,  with 
great  effort  to  inculcate  early  what  will  later  come  naturally  and 
better  of  itself.  The  drawing  of  the  kindergarten  children  thus 
tends  to  be  wooden ;  and  its  introduction  into  the  curriculum  is 
to  invert  the  order  of  nature,  which  prompts  the  child  to  draw 
complex  scenes  with  animals  and  men  in  motion  first,  with 
never  a  straight  line,  circle,  or  mathematical  angle  until  much 
later.  The  sins  of  this  introduction  of  regular  mathematical 
forms  against  both  the  artistic  sense  and  power  of  execution, 
which  can  be  laid  to  the  door  of  the  kindergarten,  are  many  and 
great.  Moreover,  as  administered,  the  occupations  tend  to 
overwork  the  children,  to  interest  them  and  the  parents  in  the 
products  of  the  little  school  factory,  and  to  lay  too  great  stress 
on  sedentary  activities  and  the  finer  and  late  developed  acces- 
sory muscles. 

Strange  to  say,  one  of  the  most  heinous  offenses  of  the 
modern  kindergarten  is  against  the  plain  precept  of  health,  in 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   THE   KINDERGARTEN  19 

this  age  of  marvelous  renaissance  in  school  hygiene.  If  a  com- 
petent trained  inspector  were  to  go  through  the  kindergartens 
of  our  large  cities  and  report  upon  what  provisions  were  made 
against  contagious  diseases ;  upon  how  many  children  used  the 
same  drinking  cup,  soap,  towel ;  upon  the  condition  and  mode 
of  use  of  toilet  rooms;  on  the  percentage  of  window  to  floor 
space ;  on  the  provisions  for  regulating  temperature ;  upon  ven- 
tilation and  drafts ;  on  the  hygiene  of  the  nose,  ears,  teeth,  and, 
above  all,  of  the  nerves;  upon  the  matter  and  manner  of 
lunches ;  as  to  what  influence  the  kindergarten  sought  to  exert 
upon  the  home  diet  of  children ;  upon  signs  of  fatigue  and  the 
automatisms  seen  and  often  developed;  on  the  effects  of  the 
preparations  for  Christmas  and  New  Year's,  upon  sleep  and 
health  generally;  upon  the  amount  of  room  space  per  child, 
etc.,  the  results  would  be  shown  to  be  still  sadder  in  the  kinder- 
garten than  in  any  other  grade  of  educational  work  to-day. 
The  lack  of  ofiicJal  inspection,  the  convenience  and  ease  of  the 
teacher,  the  limited  means  with  which  many  kindergartens  are 
conducted,  and,  we  must  add,  the  relatively  too  absorbing  de- 
votion to  speculative  theory  ai;e  responsible  for  this  neglect. 
The  present  is,  however,  witnessing  a  happy  if  slow  improve- 
ment in  this  respect. 

In  direct  contradiction  to  all  this,  Froebel  believed  the  child 
should  live  out  of  doors;  would  give  each  child  a  flower  bed 
that  he  might  have  access  to  Mother  Earth;  emphasized  the 
need  of  abundant  and  healthful  activity  for  the  whole  body, 
and  understood  the  hygienic  necessities  of  leisure.  We 
forget  that  the  very  definition  of  school  means  leisure ;  that  the 
child  must  have  it  in  great  abundance ;  and  that  he  must  be  pro- 
tected and  shielded  from  the  activities  of  the  great  world ;  so 
that  Nature  and  heredity — an  ounce  of  which  is  worth  tons  of 
education — can  get  in  their  work.  Quiet,  rest,  sleep,  lethargy, 
and,  above  all,  daydreaming,  are  essential ;  and  he  must  have 
a  strong  cause  who  would  interfere  with  Nature's  operations. 

The  nursery  element,  now  often  so  abhorred,  must  be  greatly 
emphasized  in  our  kindergartens.  Some  factors  of  the  now 
admirable  education  of  nurses  should  be  introduced  by  a  com- 
petent medical  instructor  in  all  the  training  schools.  Next  to 
out  of  doors,  the  kindergarten,  at  least  in  winter,  might  be 
on  the  top  floor  under  a  roof  wide  open  to  light,  where  some 


20  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

of  the  health  provisions  of  hospitals  are  seen.  Lectures  to 
kindergartners  on  foods  and  nutrition,  on  emergencies,  and 
on  other  practical  matters,  instead  of  on  the  scholastic  meta- 
physics now  in  vogue,  are  most  urgently  and  imperatively  de- 
manded for  the  welfare  of  the  rising  generation.  I  would  like 
to  see  organized  a  work  of  rescue  to  deliver  the  modern  kin- 
dergarten from  the  metaphysicians,  and  to  give  it  over  to  the 
philosophical  hygienists,  who  should  make  it  everywhere  and 
first  of  all  a  place  of  health. 

IV. — The  needed  reforms  in  the  kindergarten  must,  of 
course,  come  with  deliberation  enough  to  be  sure. .  A  commit- 
tee of  ten  or  more  might  help,  provided  they  were  not  kinder- 
gartners, but  were  wise  and  competent;  although  a  badly  ap- 
pointed committee  would  do  harm  by  confirming  old  practices. 
Let  me  confess  frankly  that  I  do  not,  myself,  know  at  present 
just  what  should  be  done  or  just  how  this  grade  of  education 
should  be  best  organized.  One  of  my  dearest*wishes  is  to  have 
adequate  means  placed  at  my  disposal  to  experiment  a  few 
years,  or  until  I  could  present  a  scheme  of  detailed  work. 
That  this  could  now  be  done  from  data  that  are  accessible  is 
certain.    Great  improvements  are  entirely  practicable. 

A  few  things  I  shall  venture  to  indicate.  The  body  must 
be  strengthened.  The  activities  should  involve  more  body 
movements,  and  the  strain  upon  the  hand  and  eye  should  be 
reduced.  The  very  high  educational  value  of  dancing  should 
be  exploited  even  more  than  it  is.  It  cadences  the  entire  soul 
as  almost  nothing  else.  Building  should  be  done  with  much 
larger  blocks.  Catching,  throwing,  and  lifting  plays  and 
games  should  be  selected  from  Mr.  Johnson's  ^  or  some  other 
convenient,  repertory.  Imitation,  or  "  do-as-I-do  "  activities 
should  have  a  larger  place.  Beanbags,  and,  if  there  were 
room,  perhaps  the  hoop,  the  jumping-rope,  and  the  kite  may 
have  some  place. 

Certainly  the  doll,  with  all  its  immense  educational  power, 
should  be  carefully  introduced.  Much  might  be  said  in  favor 
of  the  color  top,  peg  board,  soap  bubbles,  and  such  old  plays  as 
jackstraws  and  knuckle  bones.  All  the  proceedings  of  the 
Toy  Congress,  and  the  contents  of  the  toy  shop,  should  always 

^  Johnson,  G.  E.:  Education  by  Plays  and  Games.     Ginn  &  Co.,  1907,  234  p. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   THE   KINDERGARTEN  21 

be  studied  and  used.  Sorting  out  very  heterogeneous  blocks 
and  cards,  and  laying  like  to  like,  might  be  tried ;  while  pop- 
corn, play  with  chalk,  shells,  spools,  pictures — perhaps  cut  and 
pasted  milkweed  pods,  potato  work,  possibly  the  whip,  and 
all  possible  contact  with  animate  life  should  be  carefully  de- 
veloped— always  remembering  that  the  child's  interest  in  ani- 
mals culminates  before  that  in  flowers  or  trees,  and  that  the 
latter  reaches  its  apex  before  interest  in  inanimate  things. 
When  we  reflect  for  a  moment  on  the  richness  of  the  possible 
symbolism  that  might  be  developed  out  of  objects  like  the 
above,  we  realize  that  the  intellectual  pabulum,  even  according 
to  the  current  Froebel  philosophy,  would  be  condensed  and  en- 
riched rather  than  otherwise.  Each  of  these  things  and  hun- 
dreds of  others  could  train  the  mind  just  as  well.  The  curric- 
ulum could  be  just  as  progressive,  and  the  motor  elements  of 
education  just  as  emphatic. 

The  kindergarten  should  do  much  more  for  language,  on 
the  basis  of  what  we  now  know  of  child  linguistics,  not  only 
for  the  voice  in  training  to  speak  freely  and  well,  but  for  the 
vocabulary.  The  vernacular  never  sinks  so  deep  or  becomes 
so  vigorous  and  idiomatic  as  when  most  closely  linked  to  activ- 
ity ;  but  many  kindergartens  turn  out  children  very  imperfectly 
developed  in  this  respect.  One  important  function  in  selecting 
each  item  of  the  curriculum  should  be  its  language  value ;  for 
this  is  the  nascent  period  when,  if  ever,  the  foundations  are  laid 
for  pure  idiomatic  English.  It  is  important  that  the  teacher's 
voice  be  attractive,  well  modulated,  her  words  well  chosen, 
her  English  correct,  her  linguistic  resources  ample  and  fertile ; 
but  still  more  important  is  it  that  the  child  should  here  be 
taught  expression.  The  overvoluble  may  occasionally  need 
repression ;  but  most  children  do  not  talk  enough  in  the  kinder- 
garten. Again,  wherever  practicable,  living,  foreign  languages 
should  be  taught  in  the  upper  grades  of  kindergartens  by  a 
native  teacher,  to  those  children  who  are  likely  to  study  them 
later  in  connection  with  every  activity.  At  five  and  six  the  ear 
and  tongue  begin  their  nascent  period  for  other  languages,  and 
not  to  improve  it  is  to  make  the  work  harder  later  on. 

Everything  that  is  done  or  seen  should,  in  short,  be  reflected 
in  language.  It  should  not,  however,  be  tiie  stupid  concert 
work  common  in  the  kindergarten,  but  free  i^crsonal  conversa- 


22  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEMS 

tion  with  each  child.  To  see  a  picture. or  handle  an  object 
while  talking  about  it  greatly  aids  the  power  of  expression,  not 
only  in  our  own,  but  in  a  foreign  language ;  so  that  it  should 
be  a  rule  to  confine  such  conversation  as  closely  as  possible, 
word  for  word,  at  least  to  the  picture,  if  not  to  the  object  and 
to  the  act. 

Standard  stories  with  myths  should  be  told  more ;  and  per- 
haps this  ought  to  be  the  central  thing,  or,  at  least,  next  to 
activity.  Not  only  Grimm  and  ^^sop,  but  some  of  the  Old 
Testament  tales,  tales  from  Homer,  etc.,  can  be  told,  in  a  most 
effective  way,  by  a  sympathetic  teacher,  at  the  kindergarten 
age.  Story-telling  ought  to  be  a  profession;  and  if  I  could 
examine  kindergarten  teachers  I  should  regard  the  test  in  this 
respect  as  second  to  none  in  importance.  The  same  story  can 
be  repeated.  This  is  the  primeval  way  of  education ;  thus  all 
culture  was  transmitted  before  books.  Animal  tales,  perhaps 
acted  out,  stories  of  savage  life,  of  fancy,  something  of  the 
fairies,  with  games  like  hide  and  seek — and  a  vast  amount  of 
such  work  in  great  variety — should  be  included. 

Music  should  be  looked  upon  as  indispensable  and  made 
even  more  prominent.  Most  of  the  new  music  I  believe  to  be 
cheap  and  unworthy  of  the  child.  The  old  ballads  and  songs 
of  nature,  God,  home,  and  country  educate  the  sentiments  in 
ways  we  have  never  known.  There  is  much  to  be  said  in  favor 
of  the  violin  instead  of  the  piano.  The  teacher  should  sing, 
and  a  great  deal  of  music  should  be  heard.  Froebel's  standard 
can  here  be  greatly  transcended.  Occasional  whistling  would, 
of  course,  be  admirable.  Songs  with  action  are  important  here 
— bad  as  they  are  later — for  the  development  of  the  voice. 
There  is  something  in  the  cake  walk — which  seems  to  me  the 
very  apotheosis  of  human  love  antics — that  could  be  utilized 
for  older  children,  who  might  be  encouraged  to  act  a  part  and 
begin  to  indulge  that  great  instinct  of  assuming  an  alien  per- 
sonality with  the  aid  of  costumes,  disguises,  and  masques. 
Children  appreciate  poetry  with  alliteration  and  even  slang  in 
it,  which  has  its  partial  justification ;  and  the  sequence  and  con- 
tinuity, identity  and  contrast,  which  are  so  much  insisted  on 
are  utterly  alien  as  principles  to  the  child  mind  at  this  animistic 
age. 

Among  other  things  it  would  be  quite  germane  to  an  ideal 


THE    PEDAGOGY   OF    THE   KINDERGARTEN  23 

kindergarten  to  have  a  stone  and  a  woodyard,  where  many- 
stones  of  as  diverse  kinds,  shapes,  color,  quahties,  etc.,  as  pos- 
sible should  be  accumulated,  including  a  load  of  smooth,  varie- 
gated pebbles  from  the  beach ;  and  from  these  up  to  sizes  that 
the  children  would  have  to  exert  themselves  to  lift  or  even  roll. 
There  should  be  a  level  space  for  them  to  pile  them  into  tiny 
cairns,  barrows,  cromlechs,  make  alignment,  playhouses,  etc. 
There  should  be  also  a  generous  collection  of  small  boards, 
large  wooden  blocks,  slats,  etc.,  etc.,  not  entirely  without 
slivers.  Here  children  might  indulge  their  primitive  instincts 
to  construct,  with  material  heavy  enough  to  exercise  the  larger 
muscles.  They  could  assort  them  by  size,  color,  shape,  smooth- , 
ness  of  feel,  etc.  It  would  be  well  also  if  there  were  character- 
istic bits  of  ore  and  minerals ;  marble,  glass  without  too  sharp 
edges,  and  even  coal,  and  a  few  of  the  more  common  or  easily 
obtainable  fossils  and  arrowheads.  To  realize  what  stones 
mean  to  the  natural  child,  read  Acher.^  That  tells  the  story. 
He  shows,  too,  what  strings,  points,  edges,  clubs,  etc.,  have 
meant  for  the  race  and  mean  to-day  for  children.  The  chil- 
dren might  occasionally  be  shown  the  many  clever  things  that 
can  be  done,  and  not  too  much  protected  so  that  there  would 
never  be  any  bruises  or  petty  accidents.  Thus  the  propensity 
to  build,  classify,  exercise  the  aesthetic  taste,  work,  develop  the 
strong  muscles,  learn  something  about  minerals,  mines,  rocks, 
mountains  could  be  giiided  and  developed  by  talks  and  model 
exercises.  Some  stones  could  be  named  and  tales  of  the  Mythic 
and  Stone  Age,  and  some  rudiments  of  what  will  later  become 
interest  in  lithology  could  be  developed  by  lessons  from  the 
rocks.  Such  a  stone  and  woodyard  in  a  school  could  teach 
many  invaluable  lessons  and  stimulate  tendencies.  For  the 
older  children,  there  could  be  joined  framework,  boards,  and 
other  material  to  be  put  together  without  nails  into  houses 
large  enough  for  the  children  to  get  into  and  enjoy,  and  then 
taken  down  and  recmstructed.  There  should,  of  course,  also  be 
bricks  for  building  as  well  as  stones. 

Snow  in  its  season  is  as  valuable  for  constnictive  play  as 
sand  or  clay,  is  more  plastic,  and  young  chiklreii  should  be  in- 


'  R.  A.  Achcr,  S[K>ntancous  Constructions,  etc.,  Am.  Jour,  of  Psy.,  Jan.,  1910, 
Vol.  21,  pp.  114-150. 


24  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

sured  a  good  deal  of  experience  with  molding  snowballs  and 
various  other  figures,  making  snow  men,  forts,  imprinting 
their  own  figure  in  it,  making  pictures,  and  letters,  mapping  out 
cart  wheels  and  other  patterns  for  games,  digging  and  tunnel- 
ing in  drifts,  rolling  and  leaping  in  it,  etc.  Snow  has  peda- 
gogic possibilities  that  are  not  yet  realized.  The  kind  of  play 
it  prompts  is  under  the  very  best  conditions,  for  the  ground  is 
padded  and  cushioned  and  so  incites  to  new  motor  activities. 
The  analysis  of  snow  air  shows  it  to  be  the  purest  from  germs, 
most  prophylactic  and  stimulating,  while  the  cold  adds  its 
wondrous  tonic,  sending  the  blood  inward  to  stimulate  all  the 
vital  organs,  and  then  by  reaction  bringing  it  to  the  surface 
again  in  the  most  healthful  way.  Thus  a  snow  field  is  on  the 
whole  a  better  environment  for  play,  and  a  more  tonic  kind  of 
play,  even  than  a  grassy  lawn.  Like  those  with  wood  and 
stone,  snow  plays  are  a  rich,  rank  soil  as  yet  but  little  cultivated 
by  the  programmists.  If  anyone  doubts  the  strength  of  the 
instinct  and  its  possibilities,  here  again  read  Acher  ^  on  the  sub- 
ject, which  as  a  collection  of  the  most  commonplace  and  obvi- 

,  ous  facts  which  only  our  artifact  pedagogues  or  neurotically 
tender-hearted  parents  could  ever  have  lost  sight  of  is  a  mas- 

'  terpiece.  Of  course  older  children  may  profit  yet  more  here, 
but  the  educative  influence  of  these  uncurricularized  experi- 
ences is  incalculable. 

Mari  Hofer  has  shown  much  genial  ingenuity  in  devising  school- 
room plays  and  games  that  combine  body  culture,  dramatic  action, 
rhythm,  and  imagination.*  After  a  forest  walk,  e.  g.,  she  vivifies  the 
memory  of  it  by  having  the  children  pool  each  incident  they  can 
recall  and  state,  and  then  rehearse  it  in  action  plays,  walking,  e.  g., 
on  heels  or  on  toes  as  over  mud,  jumping  puddles  and  ditches,  climb- 
ing fences,  pulling  down  branches,  scuffing  through  leaves,  piling 
them  up  and  making  bonfires  and  dancing  about  them,  etc.  They 
may  even  visit  the  farm  in  imagination  and  climb  into  wagons, 
teeter,  drive,  then  run  over  the  pasture,  play  horse,  hunt  eggs,  milk 
cows,  churn,  fodder,  each  perhaps  with  half  a  dozen  movements  and 
with  music.  Or  they  may  ride  on  carts,  merry-go-rounds,  swing, 
visit  the  seashore,  play  and  paddle  in  the  water,  bathe,  swim,  fish ; 

*  R.  A.  Acher,  Spontaneous  Constructions,  etc.,  Am.  Jour,  of  Psy.,  Jan.,  1910, 
Vol.  21,  pp.  1 14-150. 

^  Plays  and  Games  for  Indoors  and  Out,  Belle  Ragnar  Parsons.  N.  Y.,  A.  S. 
Barnes,  215  p.,  1909. 


THE    PEDAGOGY    OF    THE    KINDERGARTEN  25 

or  again,  gather  apples,  make  cider,  cut,  thresh,  and  bind  grain,  husk 
corn,  harvest  pumpkins,  watermelons,  pick  nuts,  dig  potatoes,  dance 
about  the  Maypole  with  harvest  songs.  Again,  they  mimic  plowing 
and  pretend  to  sow  seed,  to  cultivate  it,  water  gardens,  pick  flowers, 
graft.  Or  they  may  act  out  primitive  cave  and  tree  life,  throw, 
shoot,  hunt,  kill,  skin  animals,  dress  hides,  make  clothes,  weapons, 
baskets  and  pottery,  build  wigwams,  follow  trails,  give  war  dances, 
play  soldier,  go  Christmas  shopping,  prepare  the  Christmas  tree,  go 
to  reindeer  land,  play  in  and  with  imaginary  snow,  act  out  the 
jointed  doll,  the  Chinese  mandarin.  Jack  in  the  box,  skate,  slide, 
play  soldier,  drill,  make  and  break  camp,  wear  uniforms,  become 
cowboys,  play  each  familiar  musical  instrument,  cut  down  trees  and 
saw  wood.  There  are  also  games  with  the  wmd,  and  the  children 
can  almost  fancy  themselves  clouds,  rain,  flowers,  or  trees.  They 
make  maple  sugar  in  thirteen  stages;  bake,  brew,  shoe  horses,  make 
barrels,  live  in  lumber  camps,  go  to  sea,  are  masons,  carpenters, 
shoemakers,  and  thus  act  out  nearly  every  characteristic  human  vo- 
cation. Perhaps  even  earlier  they  have  singular  capacity  for  imag- 
ining themselves  about  every  kind  of  animal  they  know.  They 
wriggle  like  fish,  leap  like  frogs,  roar  like  lions,  run  like  colts,  growl 
like  bears,  and  all  the  rest.  They  can  even  roll  imaginary  hoops 
and  play  with  fancied  marbles  or  trains,  so  that  almost  every  kind 
of  movement  which  they  can  possibly  form  any  conception  of  is 
laid  under  tribute.  Then  there  is  the  large  body  of  folk  games  and 
carols.  These  are  often  sandwiched  in  with  pictures,  morning  talks, 
nature  material,  stories,  all  kinds  of  gifts  and  occupations,  all  with 
unity  enough  for  effectiveness  and  for  harmony  of  the  manifold 
elements,  but  without  danger  of  interfering  with  freedom  by  hyper- 
methodic  completeness  and  system.  All  is  suggestion  and  stimula- 
tion and  the  concomitant  action  of  the  mind  and  of  the  body — each 
spurs  on  the  other  to  do  its  best,  thus  securing  very  high  culture 
value  and  affording  phyletic  recapitulation  an  opportunity  to  do  its 
beneficent  work.  The  richness  and  variety  of  the  feeling  involved 
in  such  activities  without  excessive  insistence  upon  special  features 
is  admirably  adapted  to  the  tender,  early  stages  of  nascency  of  all 
the  powers  of  the  microcosmic  soul  of  childhood.  It  involves  dis- 
cipline without  ceasing  to  be  play.  It  vivifies  myth  and  fills  songs 
with  a  good  body  of  material. 

We  would  broaden  it  yet  a  little  more  and  even  act  plays  of 
battles,  funerals,  weddings,  church,  some  crimes,  trials,  punishments, 
possibly  having  goody  children  act  out  the  bad  roles,  remembering 
that  sometimes  feigning  evils  weakens  their  hold  upon  the  child's 
soul;  also,  conversely,  the  rough  children  might  play  tender  parts. 
In  no  educational  stage  can  humanity  be  so  completely  or  so  advan- 
tageously orbed  out  to  its  full  dimensions.  Sympathy  with  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  nun  has  thus  widened  the  whole  periscope  of 
human  nature.  It  also  performs  moral  choice  and  destinies.  Aban- 
don in  such  activities,  though  some  of  them  be  questionable,  can, 


26  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

we  opine,  in  many  cases  have  only  the  best  results  for  strong  and 
vigorous  children,  and  surely  to  their  interests  those  of  the  neurotic 
should  be  sacrificed,  if  either  must  yield  to  the  other.  In  the  kin- 
dergarten we  should  seek  the  minimum  of  repression  and  the  maxi- 
mum of  liberty.  Even  to  be  a  little  bad  occasionally  brings  out 
correctives  that  slumber  in  each  individual  that  his  playmates  are  so 
ready  to  help  him  develop. 

The  intellectual  method  of  kindergarten  thought  needs  re- 
adjustment. It  must  be  made  accessible  to  the  scientific  move- 
ment of  the  age,  which  has  only  lately  touched  it.  It  must 
study  and  profit  by  the  marvelous  School  of  Infancy,  which 
Comenius,  long  before  Froebel,  and  no  less  wisely,  devised. 
It  should  cultivate  children,  not  in  pots,  but  in  gardens.  It 
must  study  the  nature  of  the  child,  and  abate  its  cult  of  an 
attenuated  symbolism.  Every  child  should  have  opened  and 
kept  for  it,  during  its  entire  kindergarten  course,  a  life-and- 
health  book — such  as  I  have  elsewhere  described,  for  the  re- 
cording of  the  results  of  some  physical  examinations.  As  Rus- 
kin  has  well  pointed  out,  symmetry  has  its  dangers,  which 
should  be  recognized.  The  kindergarten  needs  not  more  knowl- 
edge of,  and  loyalty  to,  genetic  psychology,  but  there  should  be 
more  attention  to,  and  a  closer  interest  in,  and  sympathy  with, 
educational  work  and  organization  for  other  grades.  More  col- 
lege women  are  needed.  There  is  also  more  sentiment  and  less 
sentimentality — a  truer  conception  of  the  child,  not  as  trailing 
clouds  of  glory  and  faintly  understanding  everything,  but  as 
a  lovely  little  animal,  full  of  helplessness,  incapacity,  and 
ignorance,  but  also  of  boundless  potentialities.  Every  educa- 
tor, even  the  university  professor,  will  profit  by  a  careful  study 
of  the  kindergarten.  The  enthusiasm  and  love  of  children  on 
which  it  is  based  are  the  very  greatest  needs  in  these  higher 
grades.  Froebel  should  lead  the  present  marvelous  movement 
of  advance,  and  not  be  dragged  at  its  chariot  wheels. 

I  would  invoke  our  wisest  mothers,  who  most  glorify  the 
home  by  the  light  of  their  life  and  example,  to  let  it  shine  into 
this  institution,  which  is  nearer  to  the  home  than  any  other. 
I  would  invite  college  graduates,  seeking  a  vocation  where 
they  can  bring  to  bear  all  the  best  that  an  academic  career  has 
taught  them,  to  consider  whether  the  need  of  more  educated 
leaders  here  does  not  constitute  a  call  to  them.     I  would  call 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  THE  KINDERGARTEN    27 

the  attention  of  literary  women,  and  of  leaders  in  all  the  re- 
forms that  tend  to  the  development  of  a  sphere  for  woman  as 
complete  and  fitted  to  her  activities  as  man-made  institutions 
are  to  his,  to  shed  the  light  of  their  sympathies  and  intuitions 
upon  the  kindergarten,  which  has  a  development  in  this  country 
far  beyond  that  of  any  other;  and  I  would  urge  my  profes- 
sional colleagues  in  my  own  department,  seeking  a  field  where 
philosophy  can  be  supplied,  to  consider  this.  Froebel  himself 
left  his  work  unfinished ;  and  what  he  has  done  needs  a  higher 
interpretation,  that  his  spirit  be  not  strangled  by  his  letter. 
The  fight  for  recognition  of  the  kindergarten  is  now  being  won 
all  along  the  line,  but  the  movement  is  still  too  much  dominated 
by  its  scribes  and  sophists,  so  that  a  wide  and  vigorous  co- 
operative effort  is  needed,  lest  the  unfinished  window  of  Alad- 
din's tower  remain  unfinished. 

V. — Within  the  last  decade,  kindergarten  theory  and  prac- 
tice have  happily  begun  to  transcend  the  limitations  of  Froebel 
and  have  made  many  new  departures  in  this  country.  The 
concentrationists'  programmes  focus  everything — morning 
talk,  gifts,  occupations,  plays,  games,  perhaps  singing  and  prac- 
tical work — it  may  be  for  days  upon  some  single  topic — a  great 
man,  event,  natural  object,  animal,  fairy  tale,  process,  etc. 
About  each  of  these  cores,  supposed  to  be  more  or  less  typical, 
there  are  questions,  illustrations,  morals,  songs,  etc.,  aiming 
to  develop  apperception  centers  and  to  give  unity  to  the  many 
parts  as  well  as  definiteness  to  details.  Kindergartners  have 
shown  great  originality  and  made  many  individual  variations 
in  the  selection  and  treatment  of  such  themes,  and  it  would  be 
strange  indeed  if  some  were  not  ill  adapted  to  the  child's  stage 
of  development  or  were  not  hypermethodic ;  and  to  those  who 
still  hold  that  Froebel  found  the  only  true  alphabet  of  childish 
activities,  these  new  departures  seem  shocking  and  dangerous. 
Perhaps  the  worst  aspect  of  this  tendency  is  seen  in  the  ultra- 
analytic  treatment  of  tales  and  story  roots  by  our  Hcrbartians 
like  De  Garmo,  with  their  sharply  defined  stages  of  analysis, 
synthesis,  association,  systematization.  and  applicp.tion.  What 
can  be  more  unnatural  and  disenchanting  than  such  a  "  six-step 
movement  "  applied  to  everything,  e.  g.  to  Grimm's  M'drchcnf 
Such  pedantic  pedagogy  almost  suggests  paranoia.  The  story 
is  no  longer  a  story  but  a  ghastly  skeleton.    Assimilative  proc- 


28  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

esses  mostly  take  care  of  themselves  at  this  stage  if  the  right 
material  is  vividly  presented.  Herbart's  culture  stages  are 
excellent,  first  crude  guesses  at  what  is  now  so  much  better 
known  than  in  his  day ;  but  his  conceptions  are  now  obsolete 
and  fit  only  those  pedagogic  minds  which  are  in  a  state  either 
of  arrest  or  degeneration.  Observation  during  the  last  decade 
or  two,  both  here  and  abroad,  shows  that  educators  who  remain 
loyal  to  Herbart  suffer  not  only  arrest  but  retrogression.  His 
psychology  gave  a  new  and  useful  concept  of  the  struggle  of 
ideas  among  themselves  to  get  into  consciousness,  which  Taine 
made  very  helpful  to  psychology  especially  in  its  abnormal 
forms,  and  which  is  laid  under  tribute  by  the  nascent  psychol- 
ogy of  the  future  represented  by  the  Freud  school.  But  to-day 
this  science  is  coming  to  be  based  more  and  more  upon  the 
affective  life,  which  is  the  all-dominating  factor  and  for  which 
Herbart  left  very  little  room.  Thus  his  theories,  like  those  of 
Froebel,  have  now  little  more  than  historical  interest,  and  all 
the  once  vital  contributions  of  both  are  so  far  transcended  that, 
to  hark  back  to  Froebel  for  knowledge  of  childhood  or  to  Her- 
bart for  formulae  to  interpret  educational  processes  or  mental 
disorders,  are  only  products  of  the  instinct  of  self-preservation 
in  minds  which,  however  active,  are  checked  in  their  develop- 
ment and  find  the  vaster  problems  of  to-day  too  complex  to 
adjust  to.  They  have  lost  touch  with  the  present  in  the  sense 
which  Janet  has  lately  made  so  significant  as  the  prodromal 
stage  of  psychic  dissolution. 

Ten  years  ago  there  appeared  an  interesting  experiment  * 
in  which,  during  two  twenty-minute  recesses,  kindergarten 
children  were  given  opportunity  for  perfectly  free  play,  instead 
of  the  regular  regimentized  Froebelian  games.  There  were 
plenty  of  toys  and  the  children  were  actually  allowed  to  do  what 
they  pleased.  So  successful  was  this  test  that  the  directors  of 
it  gradually  extended  this  recess  opportunity  to  a  part  of  the 
school  time  and  allowed  the  children  to  choose  their  kindergar- 
ten material,  games,  songs,  and  to  converse  freely  about  them 
and  to  amuse  themselves  under  the  gLiidance  of  the  teacher,  so 
that  imposition  from  them  was  at  least  greatly  lessened.    Only 


*  A  Study  of  the  Kindergarten  Problem,  by  F.  Burk  and  C.  F.  Burk  (with 
many  cooperators),  The  Whitaker  &  Ray  Co.,  San  Francisco,  1899,  123  p. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   THE   KINDERGARTEN  29 

a  small  per  cent  of  these  children  chose  the  sphere  and  cubes; 
and  in  general,  although  tried  only  a  year,  the  experiment  was 
highly  suggestive,  for  it  showed  how  real  children  differ  from 
the  manikin  children  of  the  Froebelian  metaphysicians  with 
more  theory  than  motherhood  in  their  souls,  who  have  been 
trained  to  see  in  the  dark,  and  often  deep,  sayings  of  the  child- 
less sage  of  Keilhau  the  last  syllable  of  recorded  wisdom,  and 
one  of  whom  is  said  to  have  advised  kindergartners  to  read 
him  on  their  knees.  These  happy  Santa  Barbara  children  loved 
to  play  animals,  as  all  healthy  children  do  and  should.  This 
instinct  Miss  Blow  thinks  it  fair  to  describe  and  condemn  as 
willingness  to  let  children  "  transform  themselves  into  sneaking 
foxes  and  writhing  rattlesnakes,"  ^  and  would  forbid  all  such 
relapses  to  the  feral  stage.  These  children  also  imitated  many 
adult  occupations  in  play.  This,  too,  is.  Miss  Blow  thinks,  all 
wrong,  because  education  ought  to  "  deliver  from  the  coercion 
of  heredity."  These  children,  even  the  orthodox,  neglected  the 
sacred  circle,  drew  rough  pictures  rather  than  tight  forms,  cut 
out  inartistic  models  from  paper,  played  with  strings,  old  boxes, 
leaves,  flowers,  feathers,  became  victims  of  manifold  wild  ca- 
prices and  flonted  much  of  the  "  traditional  material."  Worst 
of  all,  as  if  bedeviled,  they  illustrated  the  recapitulation  theory 
instead  of  resisting  nature;  and  this  "yielded  fatal  results,"  for 
the  chief  lesson  of  life  is  "  restraint  and  renunciation."  Now, 
in  fact,  nothing  is  better  established  in  a  broad  and  general  way 
than  the  recapitulation  theory,  manifold  as  are  its  gaps  and 
exceptions ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  the  law  "  from  fundamental 
to  accessory  movements,"  which  in  the  last  decade  has  greatly 
modified  kindergarten  practice  in  most  of  the  best  kindergar- 
tens abroad."  No  one  who  knows  modern  biolog}\  or  the  laws 
of  inheritance,  or  criminology,  or  psychopathology,  in  all  of 
which  these  principles  are  cardinal,  has  ever  dreamed  of  deny- 
ing this  basal  truth  ;  for  all  evolutionists  know  that  every  misfit 
and  exception  requires  and  often  has  a  special  explanation; 

'  Blow,  Susan  E.:  Educational  Issues  in  the  KinrUTKarton,  N.  Y.,  Applcton, 
IQ08,  386  p.  This  is  j)rc)l)alily  thi-  ahlt-st  work  this  muntry  has  pnxlud-d  on 
the  kindergarten  and  taken  with  Miss  N.  C  Vandewalker's  adniinihle  and  com- 
prehensive survey  (The  Kindergarten  in  American  E<lucati(>n,  Macmillan,  N.  Y., 
IQ08,  274  p.)  pn-cludes  the  necessity  of  muhii>lyinR  references  to  literatun-,  or  fur- 
ther description  <jf  present  status  and  pmblems  here. 


30  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

and  all  such  facts  usually  prove  the  rule.  To  argue,  as  Miss 
Blow  does  so  earnestly,  that  to  admit  that  children  pass  through 
lower  stages  in  repeating  the  history  of  the  race  is  a  plea  for 
allowing  positive  immorality  in  them,  is  too  preposterous  for 
consideration. 

The  industrialists  seek  to  curriculize  cooking,  washing, 
ironing,  perhaps  for  dolls,  and  many  other  forms  of  human 
occupation.  Miss  Dopp  ^  bases  her  programme  on  the  principle 
that  "  those  racial  activities  which  are  most  ancient  and  most 
prolonged  have  had  the  most  potent  influence  in  determining 
the  attitude  of  mankind."  "  Industry  is  the  matrix  that  holds 
within  itself  the  other  interests  of  life."  Household  precede 
vocational  industries.  Miss  Patty  Hill,  than  whom  this  coun- 
try has  produced  no  more  sane  and  thoughtful  exponent  of 
the  kindergarten,  who  deserves  to  be  called  the  leader  of  the 
now  ascendant  progressives,  as  Miss  Blow  is  of  the  conserva- 
tives, the  publication  of  whose  exposition  is  awaited  with 
peculiar  interest,  recognizes  that  work  done  for,  has  a  very 
different  effect  from  the  same  work  later  done  by,  the  child. 
We  must  provide  the  child  with  racial  experience  in  which  its 
own  narrow  life  is  often  so  pathetically  poor.  We  must  admit 
that  the  stories  of  primitive  times  are  not  very  well  told  by 
Miss  Dopp;  but  her  principle  is  a  sound  and  valuable  one, 
though  her  stories  do  need  to  be  reformed.  The  Pestalozzi- 
Froebel-Haus  in  Berlin  applies  this  principle  in  some  respects 
better. 

John  Dewey  carries  the  industrial  principle  still  further.^ 
The  school  should  be  a  typical  community  and  would  fit  for 
social  life  by  engaging  in  it.  As  Femly  says :  "The  appropriate 
food  for  each  of  our  spontaneous  interest  is  the  mass  of  ideas 
that  engaged  the  ancestors  to  whom  the  instinctive  interest  is 
due."  Such  activities  are  the  articulating  centers  of  life. 
Early  and  basal  occupations  are  the  "  points  of  departure 
whence  the  children  shall  be  led  out  into  realization  of  the 


•  Dopp,  K.  E.:  The  Place  of  Industries  in  Elementary  Education.  University 
Press,  Chicago,  1903,  208  p. 

'Dewey,  John:  The  School  and  Society.  University  Press,  Chicago,  1907, 
125  p.  The  Child  and  the  Curriculum.  University  Press,  Chicago,  1902,  40  p. 
The  Ethical  Principles  Underlying  Education.  University  Press,  Chicago,  1903, 
34  P- 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   THE   KINDERGARTEN         31 

historical  development  of  man,"  Thus  construction  rather 
than  absorption  of  knowledge  should  be  the  end;  and  on  the 
basis  of  cooperation  and  the  spirit  of  service,  science,  art,  and 
literature  can  best  be  evolved.  This  idea  has  been  put  to  work 
with  a  hundred  children  and  the  result  has  made  a  real  con- 
tribution to  educational  theory  and  practice.  It  fadges  well 
with  what  may  be  called  the  lower  pragmatism  that  is  not 
identical  with  but  opposed  to  humanism.  But  it  has  not  ad- 
justed the  industrial  occupations  to  the  stages  of  child  develop- 
ment, i.  e.,  it  puts  some  too  early  and  some  too  late  and  often 
inverts  their  true  order.  It  also  overemphasizes  some  and  neg- 
lects other  industrial  recapitulatory  elements.  But  its  chief 
shortcoming  is  in  its  failure  to  realize  how  young  children,  with 
no  opportunity  for  social  selection,  assimilate  well-chosen 
myths  and  literary  rudiments,  and  how  disconnected  and  inde- 
pendent such  thoughts  are  from  all  forms  of  industry. 

The  disciples  of  Miss  Blow,  and  they  are  many,  feel  that 
Herbart  and  his  followers,  Dewey  and  his  group,  Schiller, 
James,  and  all  pragmatists  as  well  as  Darwinists,  and  my  own 
poor  efforts  and  those  who  may  have  been  affected  by  them,  to 
whom  Miss  Blow  gives  so  much  attention,  all  geneticists,  labor- 
atory psychologists,  and,  most  of  all,  students  of  childhood,  are 
dangerous  and  are  striving  to  seduce  kindergartners  from  the 
straight  and  narrow  way  laid  down  by  Froebel  that  leads  to 
the  true  fold,  for  they  all  strive  to  foist  alien  ideas  and  proc- 
esses from  without  instead  of  to  develop  from  within.  Miss 
Blow  is  honest,  sincere,  able,  well-endowed  with  and  dominated 
by  the  instinct  of  leadership,  and  so  uncompromising  that  she 
would  ostracize,  if  she  could,  from  every  programme  of 
teachers'  meetings,  those  who  urge  views  that  are  divergent 
from  those  she  deems  sound.  Her  discussions  often  trans- 
cend the  kindergarten  field ;  and  she  is  one  of  the  dwindling 
number  of  educational  thinkers  who  represent  in  this  practical 
land  the  now  very  attenuated  influence  of  the  German  idealism 
of  Kant.  Fichte,  and  Hegel.  Such  knights  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
are  looking  backward  and  not  forward.  Happily,  the  kinder- 
garten has  at  last  broken  away  from  the  narrow  lines  they 
prescribed  for  it  and  has  entered  the  broad  field  of  education, 
so  that  instead  of  being  isolated,  it  is  lx?coming  interested  in  all 
important  movements  in  this  wider  field.    It  is  Ixjcause  the  kin- 


32  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

dergarten  horizon  was  in  its  early  days  kept  so  narrow  that 
now  in  this  day  of  sudden  and  unwonted  freedom  from  philo- 
sophical schematism,  there  are  just  now  some  extravagances 
and  many  trialette  schemes  of  very  diverse  merits;  but  this  is 
not  only  inevitable  but  well,  for  all  true  progress  is  by  the 
method  of  trial  and  error.  It  is  high  time  that  this  emancipa- 
tion occurred,  for  there  are  large  arrears  left  over  from  the 
old  days  of  bondage  to  be  made  up.  New  and  able  leaders,  not 
one  but  many,  are  rising  who  are  throwing  to  the  winds  the  old 
prejudices  and  who  know  and  sympathize  with  the  best  that  is 
new  as  well  as  with  the  old.  The  next  decade  or  two  will  see 
far  more  remarkable  advances  in  both  theory  and  practice  than 
have  taken  place  during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century. 

VL — Turning  now  to  kindergartens  in  Europe,  attendance 
is  always  and  everywhere  voluntary.  In  England  and  France, 
the  only  two  countries  where  infant  schools  are  a  part  of  the 
State  system,  children  may  attend  from  three  to  five,  at  which 
latter  age  England  is  the  only  country  in  the  world  to  compel 
attendance  (the  legal  age  usually  being  six,  only  Scandinavian 
lands  placing  it  at  seven).  In  the  Ecples  Maternelles  children 
can  enter  as  early  as  two.  In  all  other  countries  the  kindergar- 
ten is  either  supported  by  the  locality,  which  is  often  compelled 
by  law  to  do  this,  or  else  it  is  a  private  venture  for  gain  or 
charity,  or  connected  with  social  settlement  W'Ork,  and  is  most 
provided  for  the  very  poor.  In  both  the  above  State  systems, 
children  below  school  age — i.  e.,  five  in  England  and  between 
five  and  six  in  France — receive  elementary  training  in  reading, 
writing,  and  number  along  with  other  work,  while  in  Sweden 
and  Norway,  where  compulsion  begins  at  seven,  the  kindergar- 
ten has  taken  little  root,  and  those  who  attend  the  few  institu- 
tions provided  before  this  age  draw,  model,  do  cardboard  and 
sand  work,  play,  weave,  baste,  practice  simple  gymnastics,  but 
do  not  attempt  preliminary  school  work.  Thus  the  latter, 
which  in  England  sometimes  begins  before  five,  comes  here 
after  seven.  In  Germany  school  work  is  positively  forbidden 
in  these  institutions. 

In  the  Maternal  Schools  of  France  and  the  kindergartens 
of  Germany  as  well  as  of  the  United  States,  the  children  usu- 
ally stay  only  from  three  to  five  hours  daily  and  are  grouped, 
guided,  and  taught,  and  their  activities  are  for  the  most  part 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   THE   KINDERGARTEN  33 

controlled.  Meals  are  rarely  served.  Where  there  are  after- 
noon sessions,  to  avoid  the  waste  of  unoccupied  rooms,  they  are 
usually  attended  by  other  teachers  or  by  the  older  children,  and 
often  have  a  different  staff,  teachers  spending  their  free  time 
in  visiting  parents,  holding  meetings  for  mothers,  who  are 
sometimes  even  taught  kindergarten  occupations,  etc.  Thus 
this  American  type  has  little  of  the  day-nursery  spirit,  which 
was  instituted  originally  to  care  for  children  whose  mothers 
were  at  work  (Bewahranstalt  or  Asyle).  Here  the  nurse  is 
more  prominent  than  the  teacher ;  the  children  are  kept  longer, 
perhaps  eleven  or  twelve  hours :  there  is  less  control ;  they  are 
fed,  washed,  given  a  good  midday  sleep;  more  attention  is 
paid  to  their  physical  needs,  etc.  It  is  fortunately  more  and 
more  impossible  to  draw  hard  and  fast  lines  between  institu- 
tions of  this  origin  and  the  three-  or  four-hour  kindergartens 
described  above.  If  the  one  has  adhered  more  closely  to  Froe- 
bel's  letter,  the  other  when  at  its  best  better  exemplifies  his 
spirit. 

In  comparing  the  American  kindergartens  with  those  of 
Europe,  the  far  greater  variety  and  better  adaptation  to  the 
nature  and  needs  of  children  in  the  latter  are  painfully  apparent. 
The  schedules  of  many  Continental  kindergartens  not  only  pro- 
vide for  walks,  but  often  have  a  curriculum  of  them  with  hints 
for  observation,  which  are  taken  nearly  every  pleasant  day. 
In  many  of  them  there  are  ample  tree-planted  playgrounds  and 
covered  spaces,  also  playrooms  besides  a  garden.  Often  we 
find  a  large  number  of  toys  provided  as  a  part  of  the  equip- 
ment of  the  institution,  balls,  dolls,  skipping  ropes,  spades,  pails, 
wheelbarrows,  molds  for  sand  or  clay,  water  pots,  various 
seeds,  individual  flower  pots,  also  plots,  wall  pictures,  picture 
books,  a  few  simple  mechanical  tools — all  these  iK^sides  the 
standard  Froebel  apparatus.  In  some  places  the  children  make 
simple  toys.  Choicer  ones  arc  given  them  to  play  with  only  on 
certain  days  of  the  week.  There  are  often  pet  animals,  both 
caged  and  free,  which  the  children  may  care  f<^r  or  feed.  In 
some  of  these  foreign  kindergartens,  there  are  tr.nks,  aciuaria, 
and  even  small  ponds  with  fish,  turtles,  ducks,  frogs,  toads,  etc., 
and  sometimes  dogs,  cats,  and  even  kids  and  goats  with  their 
harnesses  'and  wagons.  If  there  are  botanical  gardens  or 
especially  zoological  parks,  they  are  visited  and  utilized  i>eda- 
4 


34  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

gogically  to  the  utmost.  In  the  playgrounds,  rooms,  and  spaces 
there  are  usually  benches  around  the  wall,  sometimes  provided 
with  a  back.  Playrooms  are  often  provided  with  a  large  num- 
ber of  mats,  on  which  the  children  have  their  midday  nap, 
when  all  is  kept  dark  and  quiet,  the  teacher  or  nurse  going 
about  in  felt  shoes. 

There  is  already  a  small  but  interesting  literature  on  toys 
(although  far  less  than  on  games),  and  several  toy  congresses 
have  been  held.  In  richness,  variety,  instructiveness,  and  in- 
genuity, German  toys  exceed  all  others.  To  this  fascinating 
and  important  topic,  the  American  kindergarten  has  made  no 
contribution  and  has  given  little  or  no  attention,  while  in  pic- 
tures we  are  far  behind,^ 

Day  nurseries  now  often  employ  a  kindergartner  part  of 
the  day  or  take  their  children  to  kindergarten  for  a  few  hours, 
while  the  kindergartens  often  receive  children  before  and  keep 
them  after  the  regular  period,  perhaps  employ  a  nurse,  and  in 
general  pay  more  attention  to  the  children's  physical  needs.  In 
France,  there  must  be  a  caisse  d'ecoles  raised  by  subscription 
or  local  appropriation  from  which  the  children  are  fed,  bring- 
ing a  part  of  their  meal  and  receiving  the  rest,  helping  about 
its  preparation  or  in  the  school  kitchen.  Sometimes  there  is  a 
special  dining  room.  In  Germany  boiled  or  otherwise  modified 
milk  is  sometimes  supplied  gratis,  and  dietaries  are  selected  and 
food  prepared  with  great  care.  A  W'drterin  or  femme  de  ser- 
vice, it  may  be,  washes  and  bathes  the  children,  especially  in  the 
summer,  superintends  the  lavatories,  etc.  In  Austria  and  else- 
where, a  doctor  examines  the  children  monthly,  and  his  services 
and  the  medicine  are  free.  The  children,  too,  are  periodically 
weighed  and  measured  to  see  if  they  are  growing  normally, 
and  all  these  data  are  recorded  in  a  life  and  health  book  kept 
for  each  child.  Occasionally  we  find  a  school  medicine  chest. 
Elsewhere  apprentices,  who  may  be  pupils  in  the  Normal 
School,  serve  in  the  kindergarten;  and  less  frequently  those 
studying  to  be  nurses  serve  in  the  day  nursery.  The  former 
institutions  especially  are  learning  much  from  the  latter. 

'  See  A.  S.  Fischer,  Der  Kindergarten,  A.  Holder,  Wien,  1907.  Also  Report 
on  Kindergarten  Work  Abroad,  by  the  English  Froebel  Society,  1909,  based  on 
an  international  inquiry  made  in  1907.  Bd.  of  Ed.  Special  Reports  on  Ed.  Sub- 
jects, Vol.  Q2,  1909,  pp.  203-283. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   THE   KINDERGARTEN         35 

The  rapprochement  between  the  two  institutions,  as  well  as 
infant  classes,  asylums,  creches,  and  all  other  institutions  that 
care  for  young  children,  is  most  wholesome,  for  the  infant 
needs  to  be  treated  as  a  whole,  body  and  soul,  and  all  specializa- 
tion should  be  avoided  or  deferred.  While  specific  day  nurser- 
ies are  much  inferior  in  Europe,  as  Mrs.  Arthur  Dodge  has 
shown,  the  kindergarten  has  in  some  localities  adopted  and  in- 
corporated the  day  nurseries  so  that  the  best  features  of  the 
latter  are  found  in  the  former.  At  least  the  main  core  of  care 
and  provision  should  be  very  large  and  common,  and  the  differ- 
ential features  should  be  relatively  slight.  Children  need  all 
that  is  good  in  all  these  institutions.  In  the  day  nursery,  the 
ideals  of  health  are  supreme,  as  they  should  be  everywhere; 
while  the  kindergarten  is  dropping  its  aloofness  and  profiting 
by  the  rapidly  rising  tide  of  interest  in  and  knowledge  of 
hygiene.  Progress  here  is  vital  in  view  of  the  fact  that  one 
fifth  of  all  children  die  before  reaching  the  age  of  five.  In 
Italy  the  Aporti  methods  of  kindergarten  lay  greater  stress 
upon  recreation  than  upon  work,  infant  gymnastics  are  stressed, 
and  there  is  more  free  play  than  in  the  more  conservative  in- 
stitutions. In  Holland,  the  so-called  Leyden  method  empha- 
sizes children's  hand  and  garden  work,  drawing,  etc.,  with  a 
view  to  developing  their  own  spontaneous  activities ;  while  the 
Rotterdam  method  brings  the  teachers  and  intellectual  training 
to  the  foreground.  Mothers'  congresses  are  usually  and  natur- 
ally more  interested  in  the  nursery  and  the  child,  and  perhaps 
women's  clubs  incline  to  lay  more  stress  upon  the  kindergarten 
ideas,  the  former  fearing  that  the  present  higher  education  of 
women  trains  them  away  from  home  life,  are  now  urging  that 
college  departments  be  established  where  young  women  shall 
be  trained  in  all  that  pertains  to  motherhood,  children,  and 
child  care,  as  well  as  in  academic  branches,  and  that  all  women 
students,  especially  those  who  would  teach,  should  not  disdain 
but  desire  to  come  in  contact  with  young  children  in  a  health- 
ful, practical  way  and  qualify  to  enter  day  nurseries  and  kin- 
dergartens and  to  combine  their  best  features,  to  know  some- 
thing about  children,  their  teething  and  teeth,  about  the  milk 
supply  and  the  many  problems  that  center  in  it.  atypical  and 
subnormal  children,  common  diseases,  emergencies — cuts, 
bruises,  burns,  bandages,  etc.    They  should  be  able  to  answer 


36  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

intelligently  earnest  practical  questions  of  young  mothers  on 
such  topics  as  hammocks,  perambulators,  orthopedics,  institu- 
tions, weaning,  whether  the  teaser  or  false  nipple  causes  ade- 
noids, midwives,  the  regimen  for  impending  motherhood,  par- 
ental care,  and  do  extensive  service  generally.  They  should 
be  solicitous  for  the  social  as  well  as  the  sanitary  environment 
of  the  child,  learn  to  do  neighborhood  and  home  work,  so  they 
can  be  not  only  teachers  but  foster  mothers  interested  •  in  chil- 
dren's welfare  during  the  entire  twenty-four  hours,  extending 
down  to  tenderer  years  the  hygienic  care  now  taken  during  the 
school  age,  insisting  that  all  be  properly  fed  at  home  or  in 
school  before  they  can  be  properly  taught.  They  should  know 
a  little  of  the  important  charity  agencies,  social  settlements, 
outpatient  hospital  work,  that  pertains  to  children,  and  all  the 
other  scores  of  organizations  designed  for  their  welfare,  so  as 
to  be  resourceful. 

The  most  cursory  survey  of  foreign  conditions  shows  that 
the  conservative  American  kindergarten  is  far  too  isolated,  its 
training  schools  too  highly  specialized  and  narrow,  and  its 
spirit  too  academic  to  render  the  best  service  to  the  greatest 
number  in  the  community.  Its  animus  and  method  to-day  no 
whit  more  represent  the  true  Froebel  than  Aquinas  or  Calvin 
did  the  true  Jesus ;  and  in  perusing  the  most  systematic  of  our 
kindergarten  literature,  the  question  incessantly  arises  whether 
these  sapient  writers  can  possibly  ever  have  carefully  read 
Froebel,  whom  the  nine  points  enumerated,  I  believe,  truly  rep- 
resent, but  which  the  main  drift  of  their  writings  so  often 
directly  contradicts.  As  only  parts  of  his  tomes  have  been 
translated  into  English,  his  scriptures  are  at  least  withheld 
from  the  laity,  and  I  have  begun  to  question  whether  any  one, 
not  only  of  them  but  of  the  leaders  have  truly,  candidly,  and 
completely  read  him.  They  have  of  course  glanced  over  some 
of  the  familiar  proof  texts  that  illustrate  their  own  views ;  and 
Froebel,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  so  full  of  uncoordinated,  if 
not  opposite,  apergns  that  his  harmonists  will  never  entirely 
agree.  If  my  interpretation  of  him  be  correct,  he  would  be 
appalled  and  horrified  at  much  that  he  would  find  in  the  average 
American  kindergarten  and  would  vastly  prefer  a  good  day 
nursery.  Indeed,  I  fear  that  the  university  patronage  and  at- 
mosphere, in  which  kindergarten  exposition  has  lately  been 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  THE  KINDERGARTEN    37 

placed  in  several  centers  of  learning  has  injured  rather  than 
increased  its  practical  efficiency  and  made  it  more  apart  and 
theoretical,  and  weakened  its  ideal  of  social  service  which  ought 
to  be  paramount.  It  is  doubtful  if  Froebel  could  possibly  have 
been  successful  as  a  professor,  and  had  he  done  so  his  message 
to  the  world  would  have  been  impaired,  although  like  Pesta- 
lozzi  or  General  Booth  he  would  have  had  pithy  and  pregnant 
things  to  say  occasionally  to  academic  circles.  Froebel  was 
not  a  philosopher  or  thinker  any  more  than  he  was  a  scientific 
student  or  observer  of  childhood,  nor  was  he  a  great  organizer, 
but  a  deep-souled  mystic  with  the  mind  of  a  poet,  not  very  virile, 
but  with  a  good  touch  of  the  best  femininity  in  his  soul.  He 
loved  and  yearned  for  poor  and  neglected  children,  to  whom  he 
would  fill  the  place  of  father  and  mother,  and  he  divined  their 
nature  more  deeply  than  anyone  had  ever  done  before.  His 
sagacity  in  many  points  has  since  been  demonstrated  by  science 
to  have  been  prophetic,  but  his  horizon  was  limited,  his  opin- 
ions often  fallible,  and  in  general  far  inadequate  to  the  vast- 
ness  and  complexity  of  the  infant  soul.  Hence  to-day  they  are 
in  crying  need  of  being  supplemented,  amplified,  occasionally 
corrected,  and  in  some  definite  respects  abandoned.  He 
thought  and  felt  much  as  the  best  women  think  and  feel.  By 
his  knowledge  of  the  child  he  also  came  to  know  and  to  pro- 
foundly affect  the  motherly  element  in  woman's  soul  as  few 
men  have  ever  done;  and  so  for  those  to  whom  motherhood  is 
denied,  he  is  a  most  wholesome  ideal  whom  it  seems  to  many 
of  them  hardly  less  than  sacrilegious  to  uncrown,  since  this 
kind  of  devotion  tolerates  no  suggestion  of  imperfection  in  its 
object  and  the  thought  of  any  possible  rival  is  intolerable. 
Woman  loves  an  authority  to  appeal  to,  whom  she  can  accept 
without  reserve  and  from  whom  there  is  no  appeal ;  and  the 
American  kindergartners  have  too  often  come  to  accept  and 
quote  what  Froebel  said,  did,  and  meant,  as  interpreted  by 
them,  almost  as  holy  writ,  until  now  the  new  and  higher  criti- 
cism of  his  text  by  child  study,  that  would  reinterpret  his  letter 
by  his  spirit,  raise  everything  to  a  higher  plane,  and  give  us  a 
new  and  truer  Froebel,  is  repugnant  to  them.  They  should 
consider  it  as  fortunate  that  the  critics  arc  disposed  to  take  the 
humbler  attitude  of  fulfilling  rather  than  that  of  destroying  his 
evangel. 


38  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

When  the  stereotyped  kindergartner  learns  that  in  the 
Transvaal,  e.  g.,  the  children  often  spend  the  entire  day  out  of 
doors,  take  naps  on  rugs,  in  camp  chairs,  or  on  the  leaves  under 
the  trees,  as  in  the  forest  schools  for  tuberculous  children,  or 
that  they  are  encouraged  by  appeals  to  their  parents  to  sleep  in 
or  out  of  the  open  window  the  year  around ;  that  in  Denmark 
sometimes  stress  is  laid  upon  box  beds  of  a  peculiar  hygienic 
make ;  that  elsewhere  emphasis  is  laid  upon  swings  to  cultivate 
rhythm  w-ith  all  its  deep  meanings,  upon  teeters,  seesaws, 
merry-go-rounds,  or  rocking-horses;  that  sometimes  the  cot- 
tage system,  and  elsewhere  gallery  lessons  loom  up  in  im- 
portance; or  that  the  systematic  study  of  the  environment  is 
made  paramount  here,  or  dusting,  sweeping,  bedmaking,  and 
other  housekeeping  activities  there;  that  some  find  precious 
educational  values  in  making  dolls'  clothes;  that  there  are 
places  where  the  instruction  in  the  vernacular  to  those  of 
foreign  birth  or  parentage  is  made  the  chief  feature ;  that  nearly 
all  forms  of  fine  w^ork  and  small  objects  have  been  banished 
by  positive  enactment  from  the  German  schools,  and  from 
many  others  by  general  consent ;  that  sometimes  wall  charts  or 
brush  work,  or  again  free  play,  or  certain  topics  of  child  study 
are  now  introduced  and  actively  cultivated ;  that  in  some  places, 
perhaps  most  in  Japan,  the  kindergartens  for  the  poor  and  for 
the  rich  are  so  radically  differentiated  as  to  have  little  in  com- 
mon; that  douches,  boiled  w'ater,  separate  towels,  making  of 
artificial  flowers,  knitting  stockings,  are  cultivated ;  that  for  the 
poor  the  kindergarten  is  sometimes  kept  open  all  the  year  round 
as  well  as  all  day ;  and  that  often  elsewhere  the  rooms  are  oc- 
cupied all  day  in  relays  of  both  children  and  teachers ;  or  that 
the  curriculum  varies  radically  with  the  seasons;  that  in  some 
places  all  attempts  at  system  or  uniformity  have  been  thrown 
to  the  wnnds,  and  that  the  teacher's  personal  conviction  of 
applicability  leads;  or  that  matter  dominates  form — these 
things  cause  in  many  of  our  kindergartners  an  uncomfortable' 
feeling  that  such  doings  are  not  according  to  Froebel  and  there- 
fore are  questionable. 

Vn. — Froebel  said :  "  Wouldst  thou  lead  the  child  .  .  . 
Observe  him  and  he  will  show  thee  w^hat  to  do,"  and  yet  we 
cannot  and  must  not  forget  that  a  dark  cloud  of  ignorance 
hangs  over  the  kindergarten  age.     Some  scores  of  individual 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   THE  KINDERGARTEN  39 

studies  have  been  made  upon  infants  from  birth  on,  often  up  to 
the  third  year,  and  collective  studies  of  children  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  school  age  on  are  far  more  common.  But  the  child ^< 
of  from  about  two  and  a  half  or  three  to  five  or  six  years  of  age 
is  relatively  unknown  to  science.  Of  no  stage  of  human  life  do 
we  know  so  little.  The  kindergarten  has  contributed  almost  ^ 
nothing  to  child  study  and  has  been  less  affected  by  it  than 
any  other  grade  of  education  up  to  the  university.  Even  the 
growth  rate,  diseases,  development  of  language,  spontaneous 
games,  plays,  automatisms,  runaways,  powers  of  control, 
rhythm,  fatigue,  ear-,  eye-  and  motor-mindedness,  conceptions 
of  nature,  man,  nascent  religious  ideas,  the  nature  of  imagina- 
tion, faults,  capacities,  etc. — each  might  be  illuminated  by  a 
single  thoroughgoing  investigation.  Till  such  is  made  the  kin- 
dergarten will  not  be  unlike  an  air  plant  with  no  roots  in  earth- 
ly soil.  Its  principles  and  practice  will  lack  all  scientific  basis 
and  control,  while  tests  and  standards  will  remain  impossible. 
There  is  no  authority  or  recognized  criterion  on  anything  in 
it  and  now  that  it  has  definitely  broken  with  the  hide-bound 
dogmatic  orthodoxy  of  the  Froebelian  Epigoni  and  has  en- 
tered upon  a  larger  trial  and  error  stage,  this  lack  is  more  pal- 
pable and  deplorable.  In  higher  grades  of  education  many 
things  can  now  be  proven  and  many  questions  are  settled  by 
appeals  to  researches  that  are  authoritative,  for  experimental 
didactics  has  laid  certain  foundations  that  seem  to  stand  firm, 
but  here  nothing  of  the  kind  exists.  Miss  Blow  bases  on  Froe- 
bel  and  philosophical  principles ;  I,  who  hold  almost  the  oppo- 
site opinions,  base  them  upon  what  is  known  of  children  before 
and  after  this  age,  and  infer  from  this  as  best  I  can ;  the  most 
sagacious  and  practical  kindergartners  in  this  country  now  base 
their  views  upon  native,  womanly  intuition  into  the  nature  and 
needs  of  this  metamorphic  age.  But  none  of  us  can  prove  our- 
selves right  by  citing  more  than  two  or  three  studies  of  this 
period.  Till  there  are  such  data  we  must  go  on  by  the  same 
methods  of  tact  and  sympathy  that  have  prevailed  ever  since 
savagery  in  the  training  of  children,  with  only  the  addi- 
tional light  that  progress  in  other  fields  reflects  into  this  obscure 
region.  Is  it  ungallant  to  suggest  that  this  state  of  things  is 
purely  due  to  the  fact  that  no  man  equipped  with  modern 
methods  has  ever  entered  this  field  ?    If  so,  should  not  provision 


40  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

be  made  at  a  few  favored  localities  for  training  investigators 
to  lay  down  conditions  and  direct  studies  so  sadly  needed  here  ? 
With  so  much  ability  and  enthusiasm  and  so  many  methods 
now  in  operation  it  would  seem  that  it  needs  but  a, touch  of 
intelligent  direction  to  redeem  this  rank,  rich  field  for  scientific 
pedagogy,  for  none  is  so  inviting,  so  ripe,  so  certain  of  yielding, 
under  proper  cultivation,  such  precious  results  both  for  science 
and  for  education. 

Yet,  and  finally,  a  very  few  studies  in  this  field  must  be  men- 
tioned :  Earl  Barnes  asked  420  boys  and  346  girls,  mostly  five  years 
old,  whom  they  would  wish  to  be  like  and  why,  and  analyzed  their  an- 
swers/ Miss  Louch  found  children  in  England  often  look  with  dis- 
like upon  the  position  of  grown-ups^;  "but  in  America  even  kin- 
dergarten children  are  striving  toward  their  future  estate."  Most 
want  to  be  like  some  relative  (some  thirty  per  cent  of  boys  would 
be  like  their  fathers  and  of  girls  like  their  mothers),  and  over  ninety 
per  cent  at  this  age  would  be  like  some  personal  acquaintance.  "  In 
this  study  eighteen  per  cent  of  the  boys  chose  women  and  girls  as 
ideals,  while  but  five  per  cent  of  the  girls  chose  males;  thus  revers- 
ing the  conditions  which  prevail  later  in  life."  Of  girls,  ninety-five 
per  cent  chose  their  own  sex  as  ideals,  showing  that  even  from  four 
to  six  sex  fitness  is  more  awakened  in  girls  than  in  boys.  Other 
evidence  here  gathered  shows  that  "  American  children  struggle 
away  from  their  childhood  more  rapidly  than  do  the  children  of  any 
other  nationality."  Miss  Young'  showed  that  in  England  children 
in  the  lower  classes  have  their  attention  fixed  more  closely  and  earlier 
on  future  vocations  than  have  children  of  the  freer  classes.  In  this 
country  this  is  probably  less  true  among  children  of  the  native-born 
population  than  among  those  of  immigrants.  School  means  most, 
and  home  least,  to  Hebrew  and  Italian  children.  Barnes  raises  the 
question  whether  it  may  not  be  best  sometimes  to  make  the  school 
the  conscious  ideal  rather  than  the  home,  where  the  latter  can  never 
be  made  very  good.  American  children  do  not,  as  a  rule,  put  the 
school  first.  They  also  choose  most  ideals  from  romance  and  ani- 
mals, indicating  a  livelier  imagination  and  freer  attitude  of  mind, 
which  goes  with  exemption  from  excessive  poverty.  The  reasons 
for  choices  at  this  age  are  chiefly  activity :  they  would  be  like  father 
or  mother  because  they  work,  or  soldiers  to  fight,  carpenters  to  saw, 

*  Louch,  Mary:  Ideals  of  New  York  Kindergarten  Children.  Kindergarten 
Mag.,  1903,  Vol.  16,  pp.  86-100. 

'  Differences  between  Children  and  Grown-up  People  from  the  Child's  Point 
of  View.     Ped.  Sem.,  1897,  Vol.  5,  pp.  129-135. 

'Young,  Sarah  A.:  A  Study  in  Children's  Social  Environment.  Barnes's 
Studies  in  Education,  1902,  Vol.  II,  pp.  123-40. 


THE    PEDAGOGY    OF    THE   KINDERGARTEN  41 

seals  to  flop  in  the  water,  pussy  because  she  plays,  a  bird  to  fly,  a 
policeman  to  arrest  folks,  a  girl  would  be  a  boy  so  she  could  swear, 
etc.  Often  their  ideals  are  expressed  by  vague  words,  like  "  nice," 
"  smart,"  "  good,"  etc.  "  Little  children  love  to  love  rather  than  to 
be  loved."  They  are  not  immoral  but  unmoral.  The  American 
father  and  the  Italian  and  Irish  mother  are  most  attractive. 

If  the  kindergarten  has  done  httle  to  advance  paidology,  it 
is  one  of  the  best  fields  for  the  appHcation  of  its  results;  and 
the  time  is  near  when  every  reputable  training  school  will  have 
an  expert  in  this  work.  Like  the  nearly  two  score  other  types 
of  child-service  agencies,  local  and  national,  lately  convened  at 
Clark  University  (June,  1909),  the  need  is  felt  of  making  its 
work  more  professional  and  its  theory  more  scientific,  as  well 
as  of  correlating  child-welfare  organizations  in  the  interests 
of  the  unity  of  the  child,  and  to  avoid  duplication  and  conflict 
between  diverse  aims  and  fields.  Civilization  is  awakening  to 
the  fact  that  it  is  in  danger  of  losing  touch  with  the  child,  serv- 
ice to  which  is  in  a  very  pregnant  biological  sense  the  ultimate 
criterion  of  the  worth  of  every  human  institution  and  endeavor. 
Hence  the  teacher  can  hardly  think  too  highly  of  his  or  her 
calling. 


CHAPTER    II 

THE   EDUCATIONAL   VALUE    OF   DANCING   AND   PANTOMIME 

The  idea  of  dancing — Children's  interest  in  it — Dancing  is  a  passion  with 
old  and  young — A  new  type  of  motor-mindedness — A  sketch  of  the 
history  of  dancing  from  ancient  through  mediaeval  times — Its  rela- 
tions to  religion,  also  to  myth  and  folklore — Our  national  poverty  in 
festivals  and  their  revival — Relations  of  dancing  to  gesture,  play, 
love,  war,  history,  gymnastics,  rhythm,  music,  inflection,  mimesis  and 
pantomime — Use  of  expressive  movements  among  primitive  people — 
Greeting — Rituals — Imitations  of  vocations — A  mode  of  expression 
for  the  feelings — Deaf-mute  expression  and  pedagogy — Dancing  as 
one  of  the  chief  expressions  of  the  joy  of  life. 

Dancing  I  would  describe  as  the  liberal,  humanistic  culture 
of  the  emotions  by  motions.  Feeling  and  movement  not  only- 
fit,  but  intensify  each  other,  and  to  a  degree,  by  changing  either 
we  change  the  other.  Herein  lies  the  great  educational  potency 
of  dancing,  and  this  makes  it  the  best  of  all  illustrations  of  har- 
mony between  mind  and  body.  If  we  wish  to  be  Teutonically 
profound,  we  may  say  that  the  first  vocal  utterance,  viz. : 
movement  of  the  vocal  organs,  was  only  incidental  to  a  dance. 
The  first  sound  was  an  accident  to  the  dance,  seized  on  by  the 
ear  and  developed  into  speech  with  all  its  music  of  poises  and 
accelerations,  stresses,  accents,  inflections,  cadences,  timbres, 
pitch,  etc.  Thus  music,  too,  originally  vocal,  in  this  rather 
tenuous  sense,  had  its  origin  in  the  dance.  On  the  other  hand, 
pantomime  and  mimesis  were  gestures  appealing  to  the  eye, 
and  these,  too,  may  become  not  only  conventionalized  but 
systemized.  Although  it  may  become  a  highly  technical  art, 
dancing  is  best  conceived  as  an  originally  spontaneous  mus- 
cular expression  of  internal  states,  primarily  not  with  the  pur- 
pose of  imparting,  but  for  the  pleasure  of  expressing  them. 
Thus  the  pedagogic  value  of  dancing  is  to  enlarge  the  emo- 
tional life  by  making  all  the  combinations  of  movements  that 
42 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND   PANTOMIME  43 

it  is  mechanically  possible  for  the  body  to  make.  Ordinary 
life,  not  only  of  work  but  even  of  play,  leaves  unused  sets  of 
activities,  and  as  these  atrophy  the  feeling — states  that  they 
express  tend  also  to  fade,  and  so  life  grows  partial  and  frag- 
mentary, and  we  fail  to  experience  all  that  our  heredity  makes 
possible.  Thus  all  should  dance  in  the  sense  above  described 
for  their  own  psychic  welfare,  for  it  helps  the  young  to  orb 
out  the  soul  and  keeps  that  of  the  aged  from  shriveling  and 
invagination.  Thus  we  have  here  another  of  the  ways  in 
which  we  draw  upon  the  immeasurable  wealth  of  life  repre- 
sented in  our  pedigree  and  make  the  best  and  most  vital  in 
the  careers  of  our  long  line  of  forebears  live  again  in  us.  We 
resurrect  their  joys  and  bury  or  even  perchance  participate  in 
their  sorrows.  Our  age  of  drudgery  and  strain  alternating 
with  too  passive  pleasures  knows  little  of  the  resources  of 
dancing  for  education  and  all-sided  development.  Till  the 
recent  movements  looking  toward  a  revival  of  its  pristine 
power,  we  had  allowed  it  to  dwindle  to  a  pitiful  relict. 

Most  children  begin  to  feel  interest  in  dancing  about  the 
dawn  of  the  school  age,  but  chiefly  in  connection  with  acted 
stories  and  with  music  with  strongly  accented  and  simple 
rhythm.  But  this  interest  is  languid  until  the  adolescent  re- 
construction is  well  under  way,  when  zest  for  it  is  greatly  rein- 
forced. Something  is  wrong  with  the  boy  or  girl  or  their 
parents  or  teachers  who  cannot  learn  or  does  not  love  to  dance 
in  the  middle  teens.  But  the  sexes  are  inclined  to  very 
diflferent  types,  girls  taking  to  the  graceful  and  more  conven- 
tional, and  boys  to  the  more  extravagant  and  even  original, 
e.  g.,  clog,  gymnastic,  cake-walk  forms.  Instructors  have  not 
sufficiently  recognized  these  marked  diversities  near  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nascent  period  for  dancing.  From  Mrs.  Barber's 
questionnaire  issued  here  and  answered  by  many  instnictors  and 
experts  in  the  art.  and  from  other  sources,  it  is  plain  that  there 
are  occasionally  born  geniuses  who  love  it.  dance  when  alone 
for  pure  enjoyment,  and  sometimes  teach  themselves.  In  many 
small  theaters  on  amateur  nights,  which  offer  a.i  open  stage 
and  prizes  to  all  comers,  one  occasionally  sees  not  only  much 
expertness  but  on  rare  occasions  real  originality,  and  always 
intense  interest.  Rarely  indeed  do  we  see  among  professional 
stage  dancers  a  true  artist  born  and  made,  but  when  such  an 


44  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

one  appears  and  startles  the  audience  by  creative  talent,  then 
we  awaken  to  a  thrilling  sense  of  what  the  higher  poetry  of 
motion  may  mean  and  do.  Its  great  psychotherapeutic  value 
when  stimulated  or  inspired  by  good  music  is  beyond  all  ques- 
tion. Although  excitable  and  maniacal  cases  may  be  over- 
wrought and  profound  melancholiacs  unaffected,  its  influence 
is  growingly  appreciated,  not  only  for  the  patients  who  par- 
ticipate, but  for  those  who  only  look  on.  Its  prophylactic  value 
is  probably  greater  than  we  yet  realize.  In  home  and  school  I 
would  plead  not  only  for  more  of  it  but  especially  for  more  of 
its  cruder  and  unconventional  forms  in  their  season,  such  as 
free  if  sometimes  wild  capering,  cavorting,  acting  with  plenty 
of  facial  mimesis,  for  this  not  only  allows  awkwardness  and 
self-consciousness  to  cover  itself  and  removes  repression,  but 
gives  flexibility  to  muscles  and  facilitation  or  Bahming  to 
nerve  tracts.  Too  rigid  insistence  upon  the  proprieties  and 
often  stilted  formalities  of  the  dance  seems  to  the  growing 
boy  in  the  awkward  age  a  very  formidable  affair,  and  rather 
than  try  to  train  himself  to  it  he  is  liable  to  turn  away  from 
dancing  entirely  before  he  has  fairly  felt  its  full  charm.  First 
of  all,  then,  there  should  be  incitement  to  move  freely  and 
vigorously  under  the  stimulus  of  music  and,  for  the  sluggish, 
music  of  an  irresistible  kind.  When  this  old  association  be- 
tween music  and  motion  is  well  established,  then  refinements 
may  begin. 

Nor  for  young  people  must  the  phenomenon  of  second 
breath  in  dancing  be  regarded  as  either  a  symptom  or  a  prov- 
ocation of  hysteria  or  nervousness,  although  it  may  be  so  in 
neurotic  cases.  This  phenomenon  for  the  young  who  are  en- 
tirely normal  is  probably  promotive  of  arterial  and  cardiac 
elasticity.  The  abandon  it  brings  must  not  be  too  wild  or  ex- 
treme, nor  so  prolonged  as  to  bring  excessive  tire,  for  in  this 
state  the  fatigue  sense  is  itself  fatigued  and  resources  are  over- 
drawn before  we  know  it.  But  indulged  in  with  temperance 
and  duly  controlled  while  it  lasts,  this  experience  is  now 
thought  not  only  to  enlarge  the  circulatory  and  strengthen  the 
nervous  system,  but  also  to  lessen  the  proclivities  to  sex  ereth- 
ism and  in  some  degree  to  vicariate  for  it  in  a  salutary  way. 
The  kind  of  tire  it  brings  abates  passion  by  providing  for  its 
tides  more  healthful  muscular  channels.    This  both  answers  to 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND   PANTOMIME  45 

syllabi  and  personal  conferences  indicate.  If  danger  is  in- 
creased during  the  time  of  general  excitement,  it  abates 
markedly  afterwards,  leaving  not  only  the  motor  but  the  men- 
tal capacity  for  work  under  high  tension  and  pressure  aug- 
mented, and  also  increasing  the  probability  of  the  subsequent 
sublation  of  temptation  when  it  next  arises  in  more  spiritual 
forms.  We  meet  thus  here  one  aspect  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
so-called  higher  powers  of  man,  but  from  this  standpoint  can 
realize  how  signally  James  fails  to  understand  what  the  above 
experience  itself  should  teach,  viz.,  that  men  who  habitually 
live  and  work  at  their  highest  potentiation  make  themselves 
sterile,  as  according  to  Herbert  Spencer  all  forms  of  over- 
individuation  are  inversely  as  genetic  power.  But  this  topic 
deserves  more  exhaustive  psychological  treatment  than  is  in 
place  here. 

Again,  empirical  data  show  that  nearly  all  are  impelled  to 
dance  by  some  kinds,  and  that  some  are  thus  impelled  by 
nearly  all  kinds  of  music.  This  fact  has  never  been  given 
an  adequate  psychological  explanation.  It  can  hardly  be  at 
root  due  inerely  to  the  tab-keeping  instinct  on  which  counting 
rests,  which  has  its  morbid  exaggeration  in  arithmomania. 
Nor  can  it  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  reiterated  acoustic  beats 
constitute  a  summation  of  stimuli  that  tend  to  motor  discharge, 
although  both  these  may  enter  as  minor  or  secondary  factors. 
It  is  probably  chiefly  because  since  primitive  music  was  strongly 
rhythmic,  the  drum  being  perhaps  the  first  instrument,  it  was 
long  made  by  beating  or  for  dancing  and  marching  so  that  this 
association  became  inveterate,  leg  movement  being  the  chief 
movement  of  the  body  under  voluntary  control.  That  cadenced 
steps  constitute  an  apperception  organ  for  certain  kinds  of 
music  and  bring  it  home  to  the  soul  far  more  than  when  it  is 
inertly  heard,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  Primitive  song,  too, 
may  have  been  more  intensely  pantomimic  than  we  know  and 
used  at  first  chiefly  to  eke  out  dramatic  action.  At  any  rate, 
here  is  a  problem  that  cannot  be  explained  by  any  known 
psychophysical  apparatus  or  process  in  man  to-<lay  without 
recourse  to  psychogenesis. 

Again,  from  the  studies  of  the  rever>'-Ukc  imagery  sug- 
gested by  music  it  is  plain  that  there  is  a  very  wide  range  of 
individual  differences  in  these,  so  that  the  same  sonata,  e.  g., 


46  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

suggests  very  different  psychic  scenery  to  different  persons. 
Although  we  have  not  yet  sufficient  data  to  settle  the  problem, 
it  is  probable  that  the  free  motor  interpretations  of  music  by 
different  dancers  would  be  no  less  different.  Motion,  however, 
seems  closer  to  music  than  is  the  scenic  imagination,  as  well 
as  capable  of  more  adequate  expression  of  it,  and  its  translation 
into  action  has  thus  greater  educational  value.  If  music  im- 
pels us  to  feel  again  the  submerged  experience  of  the  race  in  a 
dim,  confused,  massive  way,  dancing  impels  us  to  act  it  out, 
and  both  probably  represent  a  wider  as  well  as  a  farther  range 
backward  into  our  phyletic  history  than  does  even  play,  con- 
sidered from  the  viewpoint  of  recapitulation^  There  are 
probably  extremely  motor-minded  persons  to  whom  perhaps 
about  every  kind  of  music  has  its  own  dance  at  least  if  we  in- 
clude the  stillness  and  quiescence  positively  prompted  by  it  as 
in  the  above  broad  concept  of  dancing.  While  translation  into 
motor  terms  undoubtedly  helps  to  the  understanding  of  most 
music,  it  is  also  certain  that  this  applies  on  the  whole  best  to 
music  of  a  simpler  kind.  Complex  and  involved  music  im- 
pelling as  it  often  does  to  different  and  often  contradictory  and 
otherwise  impossible  movements,  it  is,  of  course,  vastly  harder 
to  interpret  thus.  Such  music  often  suggests  passive  move- 
ments like  hovering,  floating,  being  swept  by  tides  or  swirling 
currents,  or  laid  to  rest,  put  to  sleep,  made  contemplative  and 
entranced,  if  not  paralyzed.  But  the  play  upon  the  ranges  and 
registers  of  not  only  voluntary  but  involuntary  emotivation  is 
incessant  and  the  life  of  feeling  which  it  widens  and  enriches 
is  gagged  and  repressed  without  at  least  incipient  movement. 
Answers  to  syllabi  show  that  not  infrequently  people  in  mid- 
:  die  and  even  later  life  develop  a  strong  desire  to  dance,  as  did 
^  Socrates.  This  is  not  devolution  or  reversionary  toward  sec- 
ond childhood  but  a  retarded  or  undeveloped  impulse  asserting 
itself.  I  have  a  few  pathetic  cases  of  clergymen  and  others  who 
upon  their  first  exposure  to  the  charm  of  dancing,  in  the  home, 
in  school  exhibitions,  or  in  gymnasia,  where  some  other  name 
was  given  it,  or  even  where  it  was  first  frankly  seen  and  known 
as  such  upon  the  stage,  were  fascinated  by  its  influence  and 
filled  with  a  pathetic  sense  of  the  innocent  joy  of  life  that  might 
have  been  theirs,  and  sometimes  have  adopted  rather  fantastic 
ways  to  atone  for  their  loss.    The  Greeks  had  dances  for  those 


VALUE   OF   DANCING  AND    PANTOMIME  47 

in  middle  life,  both  men  and  women,  as  well  as  for  the  aged, 
which,  like  other  choragic  creations  of  antiquity,  are,  of  course, 
lost.  A  poet  interested  in  the  intricacies  of  prosody  or  a  musi- 
cian in  the  days  before  the  diatonic  system,  when  modes  and 
modulations  were  so  effective  and  the  use  of  which  is  now 
largely  lost,  might  well  cultivate  this  art.  But  the  spontaneous 
senescent  infection  with  the  Terpsichorean^  spell,  which  was 
not  tarantism  and  not  religious  fanaticism,  seems  a  unique 
phenomenon  of  rejuvenation.  It  is  as  salutary  as  it  is  inexplic- 
able. It  is  hardly  comparable  to  restored  normal  vision  or 
repigmentation  of  hair  in  the  aged,  and  probably  will  not  be 
explained  till  senescence  is  as  well  known  as  is  adolescence. 
Psychologically  it  is  not  without  analogies  to  conversion,  which 
belongs  in  youth  but  which  may  also  occur  late  in  life.  In  the 
hygiene  of  old  age  it  will  certainly  one  day  have  its  place.  The 
phenomenon  is  one  which  may  suggest  that  at  a  certain  stage  of 
post-maturity  there  is  a  normal  physiological  as  there  is  a  deep- 
seated  psychic  tendency  to  pause  and  complement  life,  make 
up  arrears,  wait  for  belated  lines  of  development  to  catch  up; 
or,  in  a  word,  a  final  round-up  of  powers  and  potencies  before 
the  withering  effects  of  more  advanced  age  set  in  toward  final 
dissolution. 

Dancing  manias  present  another  difficult  problem  to  the 
psychogenesist.  Why  their  extreme  infectious  quality  and  why 
the  loss  of  all  inhibition  and  the  passion  to  dance  to  the  utter- 
most limits  of  endurance,  till  complete  exhaustion  and  some- 
times death  supervene?  The  exhilaration  may  become  positive 
inebriation.  The  dancer  feels  inspired  or  possessed,  attains 
ecstacy,  vision,  or  trance,  lets  himself  go  with  rapture,  perhaps 
mutilates  and  may  even  slay  himself  in  mad  frenzy.  He  leaps, 
shrieks,  is  convulsed  and  frantic,  loses  all  control,  knows  no 
restraint,  exposes  his  person,  violates  every  decency  in  both  his 
deeds  and  his  words,  becomes  outrageous,  orgiastic,  raving 
and  bacchanalian.  In  all  these  historical  more  or  less  licensed 
excesses  we  can  only  see  the  outcrop  of  a  profound  instinct 
16  occasionally  break  away  from  every  constraint  and  throw 
off  all  the  countless  repressions  of  society,  especially  on  the 
part  of  those  whose  lives  have  long  l)een  cabined.  cribl)ed, 
and  confined,  and  give  free  rein  to  every  impulse.  It  is  a  physi- 
ologiaU  declaration  of  independence  from  every  sort  of  control, 


48  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

as  an  eruption  through  superposed  geologic  strata  vents  the 
primeval  volcanic  forces  held  in  check  it  may  be  for  unnum- 
bered generations.  The  study  of  such  phenomena  gives  us  an 
unparalleled  illustration  of  the  forces  that  slumber  deep  in 
human  nature  and  occasionally  wreak  themselves  upon  expres- 
sion and  play  havoc  with  all  the  incrustations  of  convention- 
ality. Thus,  in  the  Platonic  sense,  a  drunk  may  occasionally 
unlimber  human  nature,  stir  up  its  sediments,  or  resolve  man 
back  to  his  evolutionary,  first,  animal  principles,  melting  down 
into  their  elements  later  acquisitions  and  perhaps  sometimes 
reinforcing  older  fundamental  energies  that  had  become  quite 
rudimentary.  Perhaps  no  spectacles  within  the  historic  period 
have  shown  humanity  so  denuded  of  all  that  long  periods  have 
brought,  or  exhibited  so  clearly  the  elemental  powers  which 
civilization  has  done  its  utj:ermost  to  tame  and  harness. 

Here  I  would  raise  the  question  whether  there  may  not  be 
a  hitherto  undiscovered  type  of  motor-mindedness  in  which 
dancing  is  an  organ  of  apperception.  As  there  are  people  with 
number  forms  and  even  letter  and  word  forms,  and  very  unique 
types  of  syngesthesia,  may  we  not  have  a  class  of  cases,  though 
they  be  as  rare  as  that  which  Pierce  ^  describes,  in  which  effer- 
ence  of  the  dance  order  is  exceptionally  identified  with  the 
appreciation  of  words,  phrases,  poems,  as  it  is  in  born  dancers 
with  music  ?  ^ 

A  Glance  at  its  History. — Dancing  includes  such  bodily  move- 
ments as  are  subject  to  definite  rhythmic  rule  and  performed  to  the 

'  Gustatory  Audition,  Amer.  Jour,  of  Psy.,  July,  1907,  vol.  xviii.,  pp.  341-352. 

^  Motor-mindedness  takes  in  me,  I  think,  a  unique  form  which  I  have  never  found 
anyone  who  understood,  any  more  than  number  forms  or  phonisms  and  photisms 
are  intelligible  to  those  who  do  not  possess  them.  The  earliest  illustration  of  this  I 
can  now  recall  was  as  a  boy  of  about  seven  when  I  remembered  the  names  of  the 
three  Bible  characters  in  the  fiery  furnace  by  a  very  definite  rhythmic  caper.  Sha- 
drach  was  a  step  right  with  the  right  foot,  the  same  with  the  left  on  the  first  syllable 
which  was  long;  and  on  drach,  the  right  foot  was  brought  down  with  a  smart  spat 
of  the  toe.  Meshach  was  the  same  with  the  left,  and  A  were  two  steps  front,  bed 
was  a  high  kick  with  the  left  and  nego  was  coming  down  on  two  feet  successively. 
I  remembered  these  names  by  these  movements  which  belonged  to  them  and  to 
nothing  else,  and  to-day,  when  these  names  occur,  I  think  not  of  the  printed  forms 
but  of  these  movements.  I  used  to  wonder  that  my  parents  and  other  people  did 
not  understand  when  I  went  through  the  performance  and  asked  them  what  it 
meant.  Many  a  phrase  often  not  understood  and  many  a  nurserj'  jingle,  some 
Indian  sentences  my  father  knew,  and  later  choice  bits  of  poetry  not  directly  sug- 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND    PANTOMIME  49 

accompaniment  of  the  voice,  instruments,  clapping  of  hands,  or 
stamping  of  feet.  Of  old,  it  was  often  a  solemn  ritual  full  of  state 
and  ancientry.  The  character  of  people  may  be  often  learned  from 
their  dances,  and  Moliere  says  that  the  destiny  of  nations  depends 
upon  it.     Funeral  and  death-bed  dances  are  an  almost  world-wide 

gesting  action  "  spelled  "  to  me  different  movements,  often  quite  complex.  It  was, 
I  think,  later  that  pantomime  and  florid  gesticulation  came  in  to  aid  these  dances  or 
rituals.  The  simpler  ones  were  sometimes  instant  and  spontaneous,  and  for  others 
I  spent  often  considerable  time  thinking  out  and  practicing  the  appropriate  ex- 
pressions. Ridicule  tended  to  make  me  more  solitarj-  in  these  activities  and  to 
repress  them,  though  it  did  not  check  the  propensity  to  think  out  appropriate 
symphonic  movements.  Especially  of  cadenced  passages  I  devised  a  very  crude  set 
of  symbols  that  I  noted  on  margins  and  between  the  lines,  although  on  looking 
over  these  old  books,  I  can  now  interpret  but  few  of  them.  During  adolescence, 
this  instinct  attached  itself  more  and  more  to- music,  and  here  it  is  just  as  strong  to- 
day at  the  age  of  about  sixty  as  it  was  at  eighteen,  although  it  is  more  inward. 
While  it  is  strongest  for  lively  dances,  no  music  is  complete  to  me  without  action, 
and  in  reverie  I  am  verj*  prone  to  think  out  phrase  by  phrase  the  gestures,  jxistures, 
etc.,  that  precisely  express  each  and  could  belong  to  no  other.  My  ideals  are  not 
only  far  beyond  my  own  capacity  to  execute,  but  I  never  saw  a  professional  dancer, 
however  ingenious,  original,  and  agile,  that  fully  came  up  to  my  notion  in  most 
respects,  though  many  of  them  give  my  own  motives. 

The  human  body  is  far  more  complex  than  the  musical  scale  and  is  capable 
of  expressing  not  only  every  phrase  and  measure,  but  chord  and  note;  and  anything 
in  any  music  that  mimesis,  sign  language,  posture,  etc.,  cannot  explain  and  reinforce, 
is  not  true  music.  Moreover,  we  cannot  possibly  appreciate  or  feel  the  full  force 
of  a  musical  motive  until  we  have  put  it  into  action.  Both  music  and  expressive 
motion  are  the  language  of  emotion  and  they  began  and  still  belong  together.  To 
think  music  is  to  think  motion,  to  explain  it  is  to  set  it  in  motion.  Most  dances 
merely  mark  rhythm  and  so  are  but  the  skeleton  of  the  true  nature  of  orchestration. 
This  modem  dancing  is  wooden  and  intellectually  lazy.  To  passively  listen  to  a 
concert  is  as  far  from  true  aesthetic  appreciation  of  music  as  mere  dead  articulation 
from  eloquence.  With  the  attainment  of  this,  however,  I  am  emboldened  to 
describe  my  peculiarity  because  I  have  come  to  think  it  not  a  deformity,  but  a  rudi- 
mentary psychic  organ  that  has  accidentally  survived  in  me  from  an  age  when 
choral  worship  and  festive  song  originated.  Perhaps  my  incptncss  as  a  musical 
performer  is  because  my  whole  body  responds  to  music  in  too  generalized  and 
primitive  a  way  to  j)ermit  sfjccialization  and  virtuosoship. 

In  my  musical  reveries,  I  do  not  need  kicky  ragtime  melodies  or  even  the  in- 
toxicating Hungarian  dances,  the  tarantellc,  the  saltarelio,  mazurka,  redowa, 
still  less  the  more  common  ballroom  dances,  to  think  out  sometimes  with  ^nat  detail 
the  pauses  and  motions  from  the  stillness  of  sleep  and  death  to  the  most  rapid, 
frantic,  and  even  impossible  gyrations,  somers;iults,  flying  leaps,  hovering  in  mid- 
air, every  limb  and  finger,  eyelids,  mouth  all  in  harmonious  movement,  with  ele- 
ments from  natural  sign  languages,  oratf)ry,  the  gestures  of  ever)'  industry,  |)eo|)lc, 
game,  and  even  animal  movements.  Were  there  a  motive  for  all  this,  I  fancy  I 
should  be  a  great  choral  composer,  though  I  fear  I  should  often  recjuire  the  physio- 
logically impossible  of  my  |x;rformers.  When  playing  the  piano  with  my  hands  or 
even  with  the  pianola,  I  am  often  troubled  with  the  intric  acy  of  the  innovations. 
5 


so  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

custom.  The  dance  is  the  expression  of  emotion  and  depends  upon 
the  power  of  the  heart  to  feel,  for  dance  and  music  are  a  married 
pair.  Perhaps  primitive  man  vaulted  and  skipped  rather  than 
danced  as  he  screamed  and  shouted  before  he  sang.  Many  primitive 
people  sing  and  dance  simultaneously.  Many  of  the  oldest  folk 
songs  were  dance  songs. 

Sometimes  my  imagination  sees  men,  women,  children,  sylphs,  fairies,  fawns,  and 
even  animals  going  through  illustrative  activities,  but  most  of  my  subjective  ac- 
companiments are  efferent  and  I  am  more  faintly  doing  it  all.  Several  times  I  have 
tried  to  write  out  under  the  staff  a  description  of  the  movements  needful  to  elaborate 
the  notes,  but  it  would  require  perhaps  a  page  for  every  few  measures,  and  even 
this  would  be  inadequate.  Moreover,  to  attempt  such  illustrations  I  cannot  readily 
overcome  my  sense  of  the  invincible  silliness  it  would  have  for  others.  This  motor 
scene  setting  differs  much  with  each  of  the  great  musicians.  Perhaps  the  most 
breathlessly  difficult  and  exasperating  in  my  repertorj'  are  Chopin's  two  krakowiaks 
in  which  the  contrast  between  the  slow  heavy  bass  and  the  ineffably  rapid  and 
flitting,  and,  in  passages  extremely  complicated,  right-hand  parts  is  so  great,  and  a 
ponderous  elephantine  tramp  must  be  synthetized  with  a  spiderlike  agility.  But 
a  close  second  to  these  is  Wagner's  Feuerzauber  and  the  Waldweben  and  the 
Rain  and  the  Water  motive  in  Senta's  ballad  and  other  descriptions  of  nature. 
These  have  troubled  me  for  years  and  I  keep  changing  my  interpretations  and  for- 
getting the  last.  Compared  with  these,  most  of  the  movements  in  Beethoven's 
sonatas  are  easy,  though  I  feel  that  mine  are  yet  too  simple  and  need  greater  elabora- 
tion, but  with  time  and  effort  I  could  satisfy  myself  and  leave  little  unexpressed. 
Liszt  is  simply  mad  in  spots  and  seems  to  me  in  many  of  his  passages  and  transitions 
the  least  motor-minded  of  all.  He  was  not  a  great  composer,  but  only  an  ex- 
hibitor of  iechnic.  Singularly  enough,  many  if  not  most  dances  although  designed 
for  motor  accompaniment  are  often  rather  hard  to  give  appropriate  expression. 
Most  good  sacred  music  is  easy.  The  one  general  principle  that  can  be  laid  down 
is  that  high  notes  tend  toward  my  right  and  low  toward  my  left,  that  stress  brings 
one  forward  and  pianissimo  movements  backward,  while  the  former  are  far  more 
emphatic  than  the  latter,  and  that  no  movements  must  be  repeated  unless  the  music 
is  repeated  and  that  they  must  be  as  differentiated  as  it. 

I  wonder  if  we  do  not  have  here  a  true  and  new  old  criterion  of  music  and  if, 
as  it  cadences  the  soul,  it  should  not  also  admit  of  being  cadenced  in  graceful 
activities!  How  far  is  it  the  culminating  edification  of  this  supremest  of  arts  to 
suggest  all  the  characteristic  movements  possible  to  the  human  frame  and  per- 
haps still  others  once  habitual  in  man's  pedigree,  but  which  with  his  present  organ- 
ization he  is  no  longer  able  to  execute,  but  can  only  dimly  feel?  And  do  not  passive 
movements  also  play  a  role  in  this  process  by  which  the  ancestral  neurons  are  more 
or  less  awakened?  Sometimes  in  hearing  music,  we  thrill,  sob,  and  even  shed 
tears  in  the  most  sudden  and  inexplicable  way,  or  feel  elated,  soothed,  and  exalted 
above  all  care  and  trouble,  experience  pangs  of  woe  or  ecstasies  of  joy,  are  made 
timid  and  intense,  if  not  positively  angry.  An  art  that  can  thus  play  upon  all  the 
gamut  and  secret  springs  of  emotions  can  do  so  upon  current  theories  only  by 
causing  physiological  movements,  faint  and  unconscious  or  apparent,  and  may  we 
not  conclude  that  music  is  at  its  very  root  and  core  addressed  to  motor  impulses 
often  latent  and  residual  and  still  capable  of  being  played  upon?  If  so,  it  is  a 
magazine  of  appeals  to  restore  vestigial  processes  in  the  soul  and  to  thus  keep  us  in 


VALUE    OF    DANCING   AND    PANTOMIME  51 

It  must  be  confessed  that  there  is  a  general  tendency  downward. 
The  skirt  dance  was  at  first  a  praiseworthy  effort  to  substitute  grace- 
ful drapery  for  the  penwiper  costume  and  tiptoeing  of  the  ballet 
girl,  but  it  is  sinking  to  the  level  of  ta-ra-ra-ra-boom-de-ay/  To 
see  dancing  from  pure  lightness  of  heart,  we  must  go  to  exiled  or 
oppressed  nations — Poland,  Ireland,  the  Basques,  and  Jews.  Mrs. 
Grove  says :  "  For  the  last  five  years  I  have  given  my  time  almost 
entirely  to  the  study  of  the  history  of  the  dance,  and  the  deeper  I 
get  into  it  the  more  I  become  convinced  that  the  religious  dance  has 
been  the  foundation  of  all  the  others.  There  are  instances  where 
the  absolutely  secular  form  of  the  dance  seems  to  preclude  the  notion 
of  its  ever  having  formed  part  of  a  ritual,  but  I  believe  this  only 
arises  from  the  Hmitation  of  our  knowledge  and  from  inability  to 

touch  with  our  past  and  to  prevent  the  atrophy  of  unused  functions.  This,  at  least, 
I  think  it  is  to  me. 

A  practical  point  of  no  mean  consequence  is  the  tempo  used  or  preferred. 
Some  dancers  have  an  acquired,  and  think  they  have  an  innate,  penchant  for  f  or  J 
or  other  time,  and  their  execution  is  more  strongly  sustained  by  one  of  these  than 
by  any  others.  These  varieties  uhimately  resolve  themselves  into  three,  two  and 
four,  time,  the  order  most  frequent  in  answers  to  syllabi.  Thus  groups  of  three 
seem  to  be  most  readily  organized  into  higher  unities  and  to  have  more  carrying 
power.  But  surely  measures  of  all  components  should  be  used  and  sijecialization 
here  involves,  as  everj-where,  limitations.  Rhythm  is  fundamental  to  even  the  sen- 
tence sense  and  to  thought  itself.  Just  as  poets  adopt  certain  meters  and  combina- 
tions of  feet,  while  others  that  prosodic  law  sanction  are  rarely  used,  so  dancing 
strongly  tends  to  eschew  many  sorts  of  time  which  are  still  found  in  obsolete  dances 
to  the  tempo  of  which  much  music  has  been  written,  and  some  meters  once  common 
now  seem  hard  and  even  unnatural.  Perhaps  every  dancer  has  limits  Ix'vond  which 
new  and  harder  tempos  impair  or  interfere  with  facility  in  forms  already  accjuired. 
All  that  can  be  said  is  that  as  wide  a  range  as  possible  within  such  very  diverse 
individual  limits  should  be  secured. 

'  I  am  indebted  for  these  historic  paragraphs  first  to  Mrs.  Lilly  Grove,  and 
others.  Dancing,  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  London,  1901,  454  p.  Also  to 
G.  Desrat,  Dictionnaire  de  la  danse,  historique,  theori(|ue,  pratique  et  bibliographi- 
quedepuis  I'origine  de  la  danse  jusqu'k  nos  jours.  May  et  Mottoniz,  Paris,  iS<j5, 
484  p.  Arden  Holt,  How  to  Dance  the  Revived  Ancient  Dances.  Horace  Co.x, 
London,  1907,  158  p.  The  Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Folk  Dances,  Cojien- 
hagen.  Old  Danish  Folk  Dances,  translated  by  L.  S.  Hanson  and  L.  VV.  Gold- 
smith, 1906,  24  p.  Music  by  Sextus  Miskow,  23  p.  Caroline  Crawford,  Folk 
Dances  and  Games.  Barnes,  New  York,  1908,  82  p.  Jakob  Bolin,  .Swedish 
song-plays  used  at  the  New  York  Normal  School  of  Physical  Education.  Bolin, 
New  York,  1908,  21  p.  Dr.  Karl  Storck,  Der  Tanz.  Velhangen  &  Klasing, 
Bielefeld,  1903,  140  p.  Rudolph  Voss,  Der  Tanz  und  seine  Gesihithte.  Einc 
kulturhistorisch-choretigraphische  Studie.  Seehagen,  Berlin,  i86<;,  404  p.  Regi- 
nald St.  Johnston,  A  History  of  Dancing.  Simpkin,  I^jnilon,  i<>o6,  197  p.  Marie 
Luise  Becker,  Der  Tanz.  Sccmann,  Leipzig,  1901,  210  p.  Franz  -M.  Bohme, 
Geschichte  dcs  Tanzes  in  Deutschland.  Breitkop)f  &  Hiirttl,  Leipzig,  1886,  2  vols. 
Gastoo  Vuillicr,  A  History  of  Dancing.     Appleton,  New  York,  1898,  446  p. 


52  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

trace  the  dance  far  back  enough.  Wherever  this  is  possible,  I  ar- 
rive at  the  conclusion  that  it  was  once  a  form  of  worship,  or  at 
least  a  form  of  magic."  The  pagan  dances  were  for  worship,  war, 
and  medicine,  and  the  Shakers  and  Jumpers  to  obtain  the  Holy 
Spirit.  Dancing  is  often  a  mystery  revealed  only  to  the  initiated  and 
carefully  hidden  from  others.  It  is  probably  common  to  all  races, 
and  is  found  among  certain  animals  and  birds.  Sometimes  dancing 
is  divided  into  three  kinds — imaginative,  or  the  poetry  of  motion ; 
descriptive,  or  orgiastic ;  and  the  ritual,  or  worship  dance. 
f  Greek  sculptors  studied  and  designed  the  attitudes  of  public 
\  dancers.     In  the  early  centuries,  the  Christian  church  allowed  dan- 

j  cing  in  its  consecrated  walls.     Orbicular  dances  of  paganism;  the 

'^  Orphic  and  Dionysiac  ritual  and  liturgical  dances ;  the  tragic  cho- 
ruses ;  the  English  carols,  originally  sacred  dances ;  the  Reihen  of 
Germany ;  the  rondes  of  France  and  Belgium ;  the  polka,  born  in  Bo- 
hemia, which  so  delighted  France  and  England  that  politics  were 
for  a  time  forgotten;  the  hornpipe  of  England;  the  waltz  of  Ger- 
many ;  the  reel  of  Scotland ;  the  slow  and  stately  pavane ;  the  tordion 
and  gaillarde,  with  three  lively  jumping  steps,  interspersed  with  much 
kicking,  skipping,  and  gliding;  the  courante,  a  court  dance,  with 
much  pantomime;  the  minuet,  so  called  because  of  its  small 
steps;  the  gavotte,  a  peasant  dance  in  costume,  often  with  a  dance 
song;  the  bourree,  with  song  or  instrument  and  strong  rhythm,  but 
careless  and  almost  yokel  form;  the  farandole,  which  can  be  danced 
only  by  an  unmarried  man  at  a  christening,  birth,  or  marriage;  the 
chaconne,  a  Spanish  social  dance;  the  contradanse;  the  quadrille; 
the  carmagnole,  which  is  almost  like  a  cancan ;  the  polonaise,  which 
reflects  the  spirit  of  the  old  aristocracy  of  Poland;  the  lively  kosaka 

I  and  the  redowa  and  varsoviana ;  the  gypsy  dances,  that  have  in- 
) spired  a  new  school  of  music;  the  strathspey  from  the  Spey  valley, 
slower  yet  harder  than  the  reel;  the  saraband,  with  its  grace  and 
dignity ;  the  coranto,  la  volte,  trenchmore,  brawl,  passamezzo,  the 
milkmaid  and  Maypole  dances ;  the  morisco ;  egg,  cushion,  sword,  and 
shawl  dances;  war  and  the  various  weapon  dances;  the  plugge  dance, 
a  Dutch  fandango;  the  ballet,  which  acts  and  represents  almost 
everything  in  life;  the  bolero,  a  very  light  but  short,  skipping  dance; 
the  cachucha,  the  jota,  the  saltarello,  the  tarantella,  Sicilian,  trescona, 
the  nautch  dances,  the  bayadere — most  of  these  suggest  the  variety 
and  ranges  of  the  choreographic  art. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  fact  about  Egyptian  dances  was  that 
they  were  a  necessary  part  of  every  religious  celebration,  and  were 

I  held  in  honor  of  the  dead.  The  movements  were  slow  and  con- 
torted, and  sometimes  a  friend  personified  the  dead  man,  imitating 
his  qualities,  good  and  bad.  The  dance  women,  or  awalim,  which 
meant  wise  or  learned,  attended  every  feast,  for  to  rejoice  meant  to 
dance.  The  Mohammedans  leap,  whirl,  and  howl  to  maddening  in- 
toxication, because  it  is  so  good  to  see  Allah.  A  modern  Egyptian 
dance,  called  the  bee,  is  a  solo  expressing  the  pain  of  being  stung. 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND    PANTOMIME  53 

Only  when  a  nation  becomes  artificial,  does  dancing  fall  to  the  level 
of  an  amusement.  Among  the  ancient  Hebrews,  it  was  chiefly  an  act 
of  gratitude  for  victory  or  an  accompaniment  to  a  hymn  of  praise. 
The  motive  was  solemn,  perhaps  to  express  deliverance.  Only  in 
degenerate  days  did  it  become  promiscuous  or  obnoxious.  Choral 
night  dances  with  torches  are  common  and  very  impressive  among 
the  Eastern  Jews.  Salome's  dance  before  Herod,  the  topic  of  so 
many  artists,  indicated  decline.  A  Jewish  proverb  is  that  he  who 
does  not  rejoice  at  a  dance  does  not  know  what  joy  is.  Delitzsch 
says  that  the  taste  for  dancing  grew  in  the  later  Hebrew  period, 
when  the  Lord  must  be  praised  with  timbrel  and  dance,  as  also  at 
the  feast  of  atonement.  In  Poland  the  joy  at  the  expected  deliverer, 
that  shall  make  them  a  nation  again,  breaks  out  in  song  and  dance 
in  the  synagogue. 

In  Greece,  where  the  soul  was  defined  as  the  harmony  of  the 
body,  dancing  was  a  method  of  developing  a^irjoulin  a  fair  body, 
and  here  poetry,  music,  and  dancing  were  shown  to  form  one  art. 
Nothing;  says  Lucian,  requires  so  great  activity  of  body  and  mind. 
The  root  idea  must  penetrate  the  whole  man  or  woman.  Steps 
woven  in  rhythm  and  verse  go  together,  and  dancers  were  called 
cheirosophi,  or  skilled  with  the  hands.  Like  the  modern  Italians, 
they  had  a  mimetic,  pantomime  language,  or  art  of  speaking  afar  by 
gesture.  Dancing  with  the  feet  came  first,  and  hands  and  arms  later. 
The  Greeks  were  not,  like  the  Orientals,  too  lazy,  or,  like  the  Ro- 
mans, too  dignified  to  dance.  Poets  were  the  first  inventors  and 
teachers  of  dancing,  and  this  art  kept  its  original  purity  as  a  high 
standard  of  morals  prevailed.  Homer  says  that  sleep,  love,  music, 
and  blameless  dancing  are  the  sweetest  and  most  perfect  of  all 
human  joys.  To  be  a  good  soldier,  one  must  dance,  it  was  said. 
Primarily  in  Greece  it  was  a  form  of  worship  and  a  branch  of  edu- 
cation. Each  type  of  movement  had  its  own  dance ;  the  kubistic,  with 
plenty  of  leaping  and  acrobatic  feats;  the  spheristic,  with  rhythmic 
movements  and  ball  rolling;  and  the  orchestral,  or  dancing  proper,  as 
now  understood.  Funerals  had  grave  marches  and  gestures  picturing 
sorrow  and  the  cause  of  death.  Youth  performed  a  warlike  dance 
called  gymnopaedia.  The  Pyrrhic  war  dances  were  the  fiercest  and 
had  four  divisions;  podism,  or  all  kinds  of  running;  xiphism,  or 
sham  fighting;  the  kosmos,  with  high  leaping,  as  if  over  walls  and 
ditches;  and  the  tetracomos,  a  square  figure  with  slow,  majestic 
measure.  Scaliger  pretended  to  reproduce  the  Pyrrhic  dance  in  cos- 
tume before  Maximilian  I,  as  did  Professor  Meibom,  with  an  an- 
cient Greek  air,  before  Queen  Christina  of  Sweden.  Lycurgus  in- 
vented the  hormos,  a  graceful,  lively  war  dance  for  youths  and 
maidens,  with  much  competitive  exercise  in  the  figure.  The  crane 
dance  imitated  the  intricacies  of  the  Cretan  labyrinth.  \'arious 
deities  had  their  own  dances. 

At  the  great  Dclian  festival  every  five  years,  Artemis  was  first 
worshiped  and  then  Apollo.     Delian  maidens,  with  flowers  and  fcs- 


54  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEMS 

tal  robes,  "  danced  to  joyful  choruses  around  the  altars  of  the  two 
deities,  and  set  forth  in  sacred  ballets  the  story  of  the  birth  of 
Apollo  and  Artemis,  with  the  adventures  of  their  mother,  Latona. 
Choruses  and  hymns  followed,  regulating  the  desires."  "  After  sacri- 
fices came  a  dance  in  which  women  imitated  the  movement  of  the 
island,  when  it  was  supposed  to  be  tossed  by  the  sea.  Then  came  the 
winding  labyrinthine  dances,  where  the  Chorentai  were  guided  in 
the  evolutions  of  the  maze  by  a  design  on  the  floor  of  the  orchestra. 
While  all  Greek  dancing  was  founded  upon  a  religious  idea,  that  of 
the  Delian  feast  was  especially  sacred,"  with  the  same  reverent 
character  as  that  of  the  Hebrews.  The  chorus  surrounded  the  altar 
while  the  sacrifice  was  burning  and  sang  airs  which  simulated  the 
dances,  which  were  often  imitative.  One  depicted  the  supposed 
amusements  of  Apollo's  youth;  another,  scenes  from  the  life  of 
Ajax.  Sometimes  these  festive  dances  and  processions  became  gross 
and  licentious,  as  in  Elis  and  the  Dorian  dances  in  honor  of  Artemis 
Cordax,  and  those  in  Perga,  which  were  almost  orgies.  In  almost 
every  religious  function  of  the  Greeks,  dancing  was  a  part  of  the 
\/^  ceremony,  and  thus  the  deeds  of  gods  were  solemnized  about  altars 
_and  statues,  while  the  chorus  in  the  strophe  of  the  hymn  turned 
from  east  to  west;  in  the  antistrophe  from  west  to  east;  and  in  the 
epode,  or  end  of  the  song,  to  the  front  of  the  altar.  Plato  says: 
"  There  are  two  really  beautiful  dances,  the  martial  Pyrrhic  and  the 
tragic  Emmeleia,"  named  from  a  follower  of  Dionysos,  and  this 
all  philosophers  praised.  The  Dionysiac  or  Bacchic  festivals  were 
entirely  composed  of  the  three  dramatic  dances — the  Emmeleia,  Kor- 
dax,  and  the  Sikinnis — tragic,  comic,  and  satyric.  The  movements 
of  the  chorus,  made  up  often  of  old  men  and  matrons,  were  slow, 
with  minuet  step.  The  liveliest  dances  were  those  of  the  tragic 
chorus,  when  a  joyful  surprise  or  a  new  hope  was  expressed.  The 
choragus,  or  coryphaeus,  sang  a  solo,  while  the  chorus  executed 
rhythmic  movements.  Thus  the  maiden  chorus  in  the  "  Seven 
against  Thebes  "  danced  a  fervid  song  in  the  hope  that  the  protect- 
ing gods  would  give  aid.  Euripides  composed  a  solo  dance  for  Jo- 
casta's  joy  on  seeing  her  son  again,  and  in  the  Orestes  dances,  Elec- 
tra  dances  in  mad  pain  when  all  hope  is  lost.  In  the  Eumenides 
there  were  fifty  furies  in  the  chorus,  and  their  wild  rush  into  the 
orchestra,  with  terrifying  gestures  and  masks,  so  frightened  the 
women  and  children  that  their  number  was  limited  by  law  in  those 
colonies  where  women  were  admitted  to  the  theater.  In  the  Antig- 
one the  chorus  plans  to  dance  all  night  before  the  temples.  These 
dancers  required  the  greatest  versatility  of  mind  and  sympathy  with 
nature  to  produce  the  marvelous  effects  upon  the  audiences  with 
which  they  are  credited. 

With  all  its  splendid  accompaniment  of  song,  music,  dress,  and 

scenery;  with,  in  its  best  age,  decorum  and  high  moral  tendency,  we 

cannot  wonder  that  Timocrates  exclaimed,  upon  first  seeing  a  theat- 

y  rical  dance,   "  What  exquisite  enjoyment  is  this  which   I   have   so 


VALUE  OF  DANCING  AND  PANTOMIME     55 

long  sacrificed  to  the  false  pride  of  philosophy  !  "  In  the  dramatic 
dance,  with  its  standard  of  beauty  and  proportion,  are  found  the 
germs  of  the  pantomime  and  of  the  more  modern  ballet.  The  lyric 
drama  of  the  days  of  ^schylus  arose  out  of  the  dithyrambic  hymns 
sung  at  sacred  festivals,  at  first  extemporized  under  the  effect  of  the 
grape,  and  then  toned  down  to  a  trained  chorus.  Its  simplest  form 
was  a  circular  dance  by  a  band  of  choristers  around  the  statue  or 
altar  of  a  god,  and  out  of  this  Attic  tragedy  bloomed  into  its  luxu- 
riance of  verbal  melody.  Again,  there  were  flower  dances  and 
others  in  imitation  of  various  animals,  representing  the  flapping  of 
wings  with  garments  wound  about  arms  and  hands ;  a  bear  dance  to 
Artemis  by  young  girls  in  saffron;  an  owl  dance,  shading  the  eyes 
and  turning  the  head  to  and  fro.  The  Hyporchema  was  one  of  the 
most  ancient  and  belonged  first  to  the  cult  of  Apollo.  The  most 
beautiful  Spartan  dance,  the  Caryatis,  was  performed  annually  by 
the  richest  girls  in  Sparta  with  flat  baskets  on  their  heads,  contain- 
ing the  sacred  cake,  chaplet,  incense,  and  knife  to  slay  the  victim. 
These  women  probably  formed  the  model  of  the  Caryatides  in  archi- 
tecture. In  Crete  perhaps  some  of  these  dances  are  yet  preserved. 
The  priests  of  Cybele  had  a  martial  dance,  beating  their  shields  to 
drown  the  cries  of  the  ancient  Zeus,  that  his  father,  Kronos,  might 
not  eat  him.  The  Arnaut  and  Wallachian  dances  are  perhaps  the 
same.  The  Ionian  was  a  duet,  danced  quietly  and  lightly  after  a 
banquet.  In  May  the  dancers  are  covered  with  flowers  in  honor  of 
Flora,  and  their  song  is  a  welcome  to  her.  Thus  ancient  Greece 
danced  to  develop  health,  courage  for  battle,  and  a  devotional  spirit.' 
In  ancient  times  the  dignified  Romans  danced  but  little.  The 
priests,  called  Salii,'  danced  to  the  honor  of  Mars  in  their  ritual,  and 
from  this  sprang  nearly  all  the  Roman  dances.  Three  hundred  and 
ninety  years  after  its  foundation,  to  divert  the  people  and  propitiate 
the  plague,  the  Ludion  dance  was  invented.  In  May  Roman  youths 
and  maids  danced  in  the  fields,  gathered  boughs,  and  adorned  houses. 
The  funeral  dances  of  Athens  were  introduced,  and  the  chief  per- 


*  M.  A.  Hincks  (The  Dance  and  the  Plastic  Arts  in  Ancient  Greece.  Nineteenth 
Century  and  After.  1907.  Vol.  61,  pp.  477-489)  says  sculpture,  vase  painting,  and 
every  aspect  of  Greek  life  was  inQuenced  by  dancing,  which  was  perhaps  the  most 
potent  formative  power  of  ancient  art.  They  really  held  that  the  beautiful  is 
greater  than  the  good  because  it  includes  it.  Probably  the  dance  did  originate 
with  Eros  and  remained  long  associated  with  him,  its  pantomime  and  rhythmic  and 
harmonious  activities  Ijcing  promoted  by  the  love  of  God.  In  a  sense  we  have  to 
worship  the  Greek  gods  to  believe  in  their  myths  or  to  understand  their  art,  for  the 
dances  died  with  the  deities.  The  dance  "best  expresses  the  n-ligious  feeling  and 
enthusbsm  of  the  Greeks."  "It  was  the  constant  glorification  and  veneration 
of  the  human  lx>dy  ";  it  was  expressive  gesture  with  music  and  jKH'trj-  highly  elucida- 
tive. If  every  new  movement  destroyed  the  harmony  in  the  dance,  the  next  created 
another  more  beautiful.  We  have  to  go  deep  with  Pythagoras  into  the  principle 
of  rhythm,  harmony,  and  number  to  understand  it  all. 


56  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

former,  the  archmime,  personified  the  dead,  or,  more  often,  por- 
trayed his  chief  acts  with  absohite  justice,  wearing  a  mask  hke  the 
face  of  the  dead  one.  Although  dull  and  severe  dancing  was  almost 
as  old  as  Rome  itself,  it  was  fully  developed  and  introduced  into  the 
theater  only  in  the  days  of  Augustus,  where  pantomime  reached  an 
incredible  degree  of  perfection  and  there  were  three  thousand  for- 
eign women  dancers  in  Rome,  who  were  retained  when  the  expense 
of  foreign  teachers  of  philosophy  and  of  other  scholars  was  cut 
down.  The  feet  were  eloquent;  a  language  of  the  hands  was  mov- 
ing; and  gesture  speech  was  even  richer  than  in  South  Italy  now, 
and  as  useful  in  communicating  with  aliens  as  an  interpreter.  Whole 
plays  were  performed  by  gestures  and  steps  alone.  Every  well-bred 
man  and  woman  practiced  dancing,  until  Seneca  called  the  fashion 
a  disease;  but  the  dignity  of  movement  and  carriage  of  both  sexes, 
and  even  the  eloquence  of  orators,  was  aided  by  it,  and  the  Romans 
were  more  sensitive  than  any  had  ever  been  before  to  the  charms 
of  a  noble  gait.  Cicero  was  vexed  because  it  was  said  that  Ros- 
cius's  gestures  were  as  eloquent  as  his  own  words.  In  later  times 
dancing  grew  licentious,  and  Cato  thought  it  horrible  to  twist  the 
body  thus. 

It  is  hard  for  us  to  recognize  that  the  twinkling-footed  celerity 
of  dancing  was  originally  a  religious  service.  St.  Basil  recom- 
/mended  the  faithful  to  practice  dancing  as  much  as  possible  on  earth, 
because  that  would  be  their  chief  occupation  as  angels  in  heaven. 
In  the  apocryphal  romance,  entitled  the  Acts  of  John,  that  Apostle 
is  made  to  say  that  after  the  Last  Supper  our  Lord  called  upon  his 
disciples  to  join  hands  and  dance  around  him  while  a  hymn  was 
sung.  Gregory  declares  that  Paul  thought  the  dance  useful  in  re- 
ligious services.  The  early  Christians  had  to  keep  their  services 
silent  in  catacombs  and  private  halls,  and  this  increased  dancing. 
The  first  bishops,  called  Pmesuls,  led  the  sacred  dance  around  the 
altar  in  the  raised  choir  on  feast  days  and  Sundays.  Each  feast  day 
had  its  appropriate  hymn  and  dance,  and  there  were  dances  before 
the  tombs  of  the  martyrs.  Church  dances  were  never  mixed,  but 
each  sex  had  its  own  chorus.  Church  and  graveyard  dancing  was 
forbidden  by  the  Council  of  692,  but  in  the  thirteenth  century  was 
introduced  again  into  the  sanctuary  with  miracle  plays  representing 
Bible  scenes.  These  were  forbidden  by  the  Bishop  of  Cologne  in 
1617,  but  church  dancing  seems  to  have  been  unforbidden  for  five 
or  six  centuries,  and  the  prohibition  of  it  did  not  affect  dignified 
and  graceful  movements,  and  at  the  end  of  each  psalm,  instead  of 
the  Gloria  Patri,  the  saint  was  invoked  to  pray  for  the  worshipers 
and  they  promised  to  dance  for  him.  In  the  day  of  the  Nuremberg 
Chronicle,  in  1493,  dancing  became  a  passion  among  all  classes,  al- 
though the  dancing  mania  did  not  become  endemic  till  1374,  when 
there  were  an  enormous  number  affected  by  St.  Vitus's  dance.  In 
honor  of  the  English  saint,  Willibrod  (690),  dancing  processions 
were    instituted,   and   in  1892   fourteen    thousand   people   made   pil- 


<{0  ^ 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND    PANTOMIME  57 

grimages  to  his  shrine  at  Echtemach.  Up  to  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury dancing  was  often  obligatory  as  a  feudal  hansel,  or  a  required 
act  of  servitude  or  tribute  of  gratitude.  The  pilgrim  march,  which 
was  forward  two  steps  and  back  one ;  the  Jumping  Saints,  who  main- 
tained this  step  even  up  the  high  steps  of  the  church  and  before  the 
altar,  are  inspired  by  the  devotional  spirit.  At  Seville  dances  are 
performed  before  the  Holy  Sacrament  and  on  two  feast  days.  This 
dance  belongs  to  the  Musarabic  rite,  and  its  beautiful  music  cannot 
be  printed.  It  is  often  with  castanets;  the  clergy  kneel,  and  the  con- 
gregation are  greatly  impressed. 

The  same  feeling  that  moves  a  Spaniard  to  dance  a  jota  before  a 
corpse,  if  it  be  that  of  a  young  person  saved,  perhaps,  from  a  life 
of  trouble  and  sin,  prompts  the  women  of  Northern  India  to  sing 
and  dance  joyfully  on  the  death  of  a  man  of  great  age.  Dances  at 
Irish  wakes;  the  Flanders  custom  of  taking  the  winding  sheet  and 
moving  it  in  rhythmic  fashion  to  song,  which  is  very  old;  the  dances 
of  the  Abyssinian  Church,  supposed  to  be  Davidic;  the  whirling  of 
the  dervishes  to  parody  the  movement  of  the  heavenly  bodies;  the 
wild  revels  on  Walpurgis  Night,  where  imps  whirl  to  uncanny  music 
played  on  catgut  stretched  over  horses'  skulls  in  honor  of  a  saintly 
English  nun ;  the  fire  dance  on  the  Eve  of  St.  John ;  the  pure  light- 
heartedness  of  the  old  English  dances  in  the  day  of  Sir  Roger  de 
Coverly,  until  Puritanism  called  the  way  to  heaven  too  narrow  for 
men  to  dance  in — all  this  illustrates  the  most  plastic  uses  of  the 
dance  and  how  it  can  express  every  human  sentiment,  and  is  at 
once  a  language  of  the  muscles,  will,  and  heart. 

Very  interesting  is  O'Neill's  ^  discussion  of  dancing,  which  he 
thinks  was  originally  circular  worship  and  abounding  in  wheel  sym- 
bols. Dancing,  according  to  Schopenhauer,  is  the  apex  of  physio- 
logical irritability,  and  makes  animals  most  vividly  conscious  of 
their  existence  and  most  exultant  in  exhibiting  it.  In  the  most  an- 
cient times  China  had  ritualized  it  in  the  spring,  in  which  consisted 
a  large  part  of  the  education  of  boys  from  thirteen  on.  It  has  long 
been  a  religious  function  in  Japan,  where  dancers  are  almost  a  caste. 
The  old  Roman  Salii  were  a  priestly  college.  The  worship  of  Mars 
had  its  dancing  cult.  So  did  the  whirling  dervishes.  The  dance  of 
the  stars  was  an  old  and  well  elaborated  classic  idea. 

Savage  dances  express  their  character,  and  some  races  have 
special  dances  for  every  day  of  the  year  and  almost  every  occasion, 
and  could  hardly  live  a  week  without  dances.  This  is  seen,  too.  in 
all  nations  in  their  infancy.  Primitive  people  often  dance  for  their 
own  amusement  and  pronounce  it  "  hard  but  nice."  Most  dances, 
thought  to  be  secular  among  savages,  were  at  first  religious  or 
magical.  The  buffalo,  snake,  bear,  kangaroo,  eagle,  elk,  and  other 
animal  and  perhaps  totcmic  dances  may  be  to  imitate  prey,  insure 

'  O'Neill,  John,  Night  of  the  Gods.  Quaritch  and  Nutt,  London,  1893-97,  a 
vols.,  vol.  ii,  chapter  iii. 


$8  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

abundant  _ganie,  or  they  are  forms  of  rejoicing  over  a  successful 
hunt.  Perhaps  they  express  regret  at  the  slaughter  of  their  victim, 
so  that  it  is  sometimes  a  purification  ceremony.  Some  war  dances 
are  essentially  schools  of  tactics,  and  in  their  frantic  exaltation  the 
fictitious  character  of  the  exercise  is  sometimes  forgotten  and  friends 
are  killed.  Men  often  dance  till  they  fall  exhausted.  Sometimes 
they  dance  to  propitiate  the  ghosts  of  slain  enemies;  paint  them- 
selves black  and  sing  dirges  addressed  to  the  souls  they  have  disem- 
bodied; so  that  love,  hunt,  war,  and  exorcism  are  all  expressed, 
while  foaming  at  the  mouth  provokes  inspiration  and  prophecy. 
Some  have  not  only  death  dances  but  resurrection  dances,  where 
they  hide  or  fall  rigid  for  a  time  and  then  leap  up  in  joy.  Many 
dances  are  for  the  healing  of  diseases  by  medicine  men,  and  some- 
times the  ailment  is  parodied,  as  in  the  Tarantella  and  Tigritiya. 
The  hideous  noise  and  bustle  about  the  bed  of  a  man  about  to  die 
are  to  keep  him  from  sleeping,  which  is  akin  to  temporary  death. 
Besides  incantations,  dances  reveal  mysteries  which  cannot  be  told, 
but  only  danced  out.  Devil  dancers,  with  their  bull  roarers,  frighten 
off  evil  spirits,  and  in  ancient  times  were  perhaps  connected  with 
human  sacrifices  and  cannibalism.  The  Lamas  in  their  devil  dances 
represent  wrestling  matches  between  saints  and  demons.  The  Mo- 
quis  paint  their  ribs  with  white  pipe  clay  to  look  like  skeletons.  In 
Brazil  the  bones  are  dug  up  at  midnight  and  dances  are  performed 
about  them.  Dancing  masks  and  costumes  are  elaborate  and  ex- 
actly prescribed  and  often  very  gorgeous.  Sometimes  their  ritual 
is  so  exact  and  solemn  that  he  who  makes  a  mistake  is  killed  on  the 
spot.  Friendly  contests  in  dancing  are  very  common,  and  in  Aus- 
tralia perhaps  the  most  elaborate  of  all  are  the  initiation  dances  at 
adolescence.  The  solstices  are  often  thus  celebrated  and  tribal 
enmities  perhaps  suspended.  In  a  Zuni  sun  dance  four  thousand 
men  and  women  took  part,  and  mutilations  and  sufferings  were  some- 
times horrible.  In  some,  the  men  are  wonderfully  gotten  up  to 
stimulate  sexual  selection  by  the  women.  In  Dahomey  the  king  per- 
forms a  pas  sent  in  honor  of  a  distinguished  guest.  The  Corrobboree 
is  essentially  a  very  elaborate  dance,  part  of  which  is  usually  by 
moonlight. 

Few  understand  what  pedagogical  gems  the  best  folk- 
dances  are  or  with  what  condensed  meanings  they  are  freighted. 
They  are  not  merely  wholesome  exercises  or  amusements,  but 
moral,  social,  and  aesthetic  forces,  condensed  expressions  of 
ancestral  and  racial  traits.  Like  many  of  the  figures  in  design 
which  characterize  the  art  of  the  ethnic  varieties  of  mankind, 
they  are  often  concentrated,  acted  narratives  of  epoch-making 
events  which  persist  after  all  specific  memory  of  their  meaning 
has  been  forgotten.    They  are  story-roots  ages  old  that  connect 


VALUE   OF   DANCING  AND   PANTOMIME  59 

modern  man  with  the  times,  facts,  and  heroes  that  made  his 
nation  and  shaped  his  character.  They  once  went  with  song, 
and  though  the  latter  is  often  lost,  its  spirit  and  significance 
survive.  Thus  they  may  be  residual,  quintessential  history 
told  in  an  adumbrated  form  in  action.  Many,  again,  depict 
national  traits.  The  Scotch  reel,  e.  g.,  says  Gulick,  represents 
the  canniness  of  the  Scot.  It  is  gymnastically  economic,  with 
carefully  regulated  joy  and  definite  consideration  in  advance 
of  each  step.  Russian  dances  are  marked  by  great  flexion  and 
extension  of  the  whole  body  as  if  crouching  to  share  the  vitality 
of  the  earth  and  then  springing  erect  as  high  into  the  air  as 
possible  with  the  head  thrown  back  as  if  throwing  off  all  re- 
pression in  an  upward  aspiration  and  involving  lavish  ex- 
penditure of  energy.  The  Hungarian  czardas  advanced  from 
slow  to  very  rapid  and  passionately  intense  movements,  a 
process  representing  the  diathesis  of  this  race.  Italian  dances 
abound  in  vivacity,  lightness,  grace,  etc.* 

The  origin  of  these  dances  can  no  more  be  traced  than  can 
that  of  folk  music  or  myth,  but  they  grew  up  very  slowly 
through  centuries  and  perhaps  millennia,  until  they  have  come 
to  fit  and  express  the  very  soul  of  the  people,  embodying  its 
memories,  expressing  its  psychophysic  traits,  aspirations,  etc. 
Thus  folk  dances  are  marvelous  embodiments  of  the  ethical, 
religious,  and  in  general  the  temperament  of  peoples.  It  is 
such  action  rituals  that  shape  as  well  as  utter  the  very  psychic 
types  of  the  people  who  developed  and  were  developed  by  them. 
If  thinking  is  evolved  out  of  actions  needful  for  survival,  it  is 
such  activities  as  these  that  contribute  to  the  very  temper  and 
tempo  of  thought  and  thus  do  very  much  for  sane  and  effective 
thinking  by  laying  down  its  neural  bases.  Hence  they  give  tc 
the  individual  wholesome  feelings  and  ideas,  and  weld  him  to 
his  race,  place  him  in  the  proper  setting  to  it,  endow  him  with 
his  heritage,  and  thus  integrate  him  with  it. 

In  the  desire  to  revive  some  of  the  many  decaying  pastimes 
of  Merry  Old  England  (as  described  in  Brand's  "  Antiqui- 
ties ")  two  countrymen  were  found,  a  few  years  ago,  who  knew 
the  Morris  dances  and  songs  by  direct  tradition  from  old  days. 

'  Sec  Dr.  L.  H.  Gulick,  Folk  and  National  Dances.     Proceedings  of  the  Second 
Annual  Playground  Congress,  1908. 


6o  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

They  were  with  difficulty  persuaded  to  come  to  London  and 
taught  both  the  songs  and  steps  to  a  group  of  comely  work- 
ing girls.  The  latter  proved  apt  pupils  and  taught  them  to 
still  wider  circles.  Soon  popular  attention  was  attracted  and 
not  only  among  the  poor  but  in  rich  aristocratic  circles  these 
girls  were  in  great  demand  as  both  performers  and  teachers, 
until  their  time  was  all  employed  thus,  and  in  fashionable 
parlors  and  lawns  Morris  dances  became  a  very  popular  diver- 
sion ;  and  this  movement  may  yet  take  its  place  beside  the  arts 
and  crafts  revivals  of  the  old  industries  of  the  guilds  as  another 
instance  of  psychogenetic  recrudescence  in  the  folk  soul.  Un- 
til we  know  more  of  its  laws  we  cannot  explain  resurgences 
like  these. 

It  is  such  precious  treasures  of  which  this  unhistoric  coun- 
try, a  pudding  stone  of  many  nationalities,  has  been  atro- 
ciously unmindful  until  lately,  despite  the  fact  that  the 
majority  of  the  population  in  most  of  our  large  cities  is  of 
foreign  parentage  or  children  of  parents  born  abroad.  Most 
who  come  to  our  shores  soon  leave  behind  them  all  such  rich 
possessions,  hence  the  recent  attempt  to  revive  festivals,  pa- 
geants and  dances  has  brought  with  it  as  one  of  its  astonish- 
ing results,  to  those  ignorant  of  the  significance  of  these  forms, 
a  genuine  revival  of  racial  spirit  and  self-respect.  The  signifi- 
cance of  this  movement  we  are,  indeed,  hardly  able  as  yet  to 
estimate,  for  its  possibilities  are  still  undeveloped.  The  mem- 
bers of  these  various  racial  communities  in  our  midst  have  by 
this  means  come  to  feel  their  own  solidarity,  to  reyere  their 
own  past,  to  feel  that  they  have  something  of  worth  to  con- 
tribute to  us,  and  so  while  their  loyalty  to  their  father-  or 
mother-land  has  been  increased  as  they  have  reestablished 
connections  with  its  traditions,  not  only  has  greater  continuity 
come  into  their  own  lives  which  has  made  them  of  more  value, 
but  their  allegiance  to  the  country  of  their  adoption  has  been 
increased.  Our  national  life,  which  was  so  poor  in  festive 
spirits  and  forms,  has  thereby  been  enriched.  These  revivals  of 
folk  customs,  due  to  the  production  of  folk  dances  here,  have 
thus  knit  the  ties  that  bind  race  to  race  and  given  newcomers 
more  courage  to  maintain  and  enforce  in  their  offspring  other 
good  customs  and  moral  sanctions  which  they  brought  here  but 
which  were  being  abandoned  to  the  detriment  of  both  parents 


VALUE   OF   DANCING  AND   PANTOMIME  6i 

and  children.  It  has  done  much  to  make  us  feel  that  we  must 
devise  more  rational  methods  of  celebrating  our  own  national 
holidays,  which  till  lately  have  been  allowed  to  degenerate 
often  to  rowdyism  and  to  pleasures  both  dangerous  and  vicious 
and  which  it  is  high  time  should  be  utilized  for  pedagogic  and 
patriotic  purposes. 

The  dancing  here  advocated  has  little  to  do  with  the  ball- 
room and  finds  little  more  to  praise  and  little  less  to  condemn 
in  it  than  do  Puritan  religionists,  though  on  different  grounds. 
The  offenses  of  these  dances  have  usually  been  against  hygiene, 
involving  as  they  did  unreasonable  hours,  fatigue,  excitement, 
exposure,  and  often,  too,  against  morality.  The  types  of  move- 
ment are  chiefly  confined  to  the  limbs,  respiration  is  restricted 
and  especially  facial  movements  and  expressions  are  so  tabooed 
that  the  physiognomy  often  seems  sad  and  wooden,  while  the 
steps  are  conventionalized  so  that  their  athletic  value  is  limited ; 
they  usually  engage  chiefly  the  young  and  unmarried,  so  that 
their  attraction  is  too  predominantly  intersexual,  however  re- 
fined and  safeguarded  they  are  by  prim  proprieties.  These 
dances  are  thus  attenuated  with  hardly  any  suggestions  of  the 
possibilities  that  have  been  and  now  seem  again  likely  to  be 
realized. 

One  origin  of  dancing  is  work.  Many  ancient  indus- 
tries which  involved  striking,  pulling,  lifting,  were  con- 
certed and  oscillatory  like  the  "  ye-ho  "  of  the  sailors  when 
raising  an  anchor  or  tightening  a  sail,  and  were  attended  by 
crude  songs  for  tempo,  whence  arose  the  old  work  canticles, 
of  which  many  have  been  recently  rescued  from  oblivion  by 
scholars,  and  they  constitute  a  valuable  missing  link  in  the 
evolution  of  woven  steps  and  poses.  In  this  clement  the  dance 
harks  back  to  occupations  of  primitive  people.  In  this  field 
pedagogic  genius  is  now  achieving  one  of  its  brilliant  triumphs 
in  devising  imitative  action  songs  that  initiate  young  children 
into  many  a  human  avocation  by  gesture  and  song.  They  sow 
seed,  plant,  tend  and  rcaj)  the  harvest  crops,  bind,  thresh,  and 
grind  corn,  weave,  braid,  hammer,  chop,  mow.  milk,  cluirn,  sew, 
wash  and  iron,  march  and  fight,  build  and  cobble,  row  and  sail, 
hunt  and  fish,  dig  and  lift,  throw,  shoot,  paint,  hew  and  i)lane, 
act  weddings,  play  games,  ride  horses,  keep  school,  tend  babies, 
and  sometimes  act  out  church  services,  funerals,  etc.   These  mo- 


62  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

tor  mimeses  not  only  give  a  vast  variety  of  exercises  for  face 
and  voice,  and  circulation  of  the  muscles,  but  what  is  far  bet- 
ter, they  implant  early  a  deep,  all-sided  sympathy  for  labor  and 
the  high  arts  of  human  life  which  makes  the  best  possible 
basis  for  an  education  which  is  truly  liberal  if,  as  we  are  now 
learning,  industry  is  the  law  of  culture.  Thus  the  child  par- 
ticipates in  the  activities  of  the  early  savage  stages  of  life. 

^Again,  many  represent  nature  life  in  pantomime.  Children 
learn  to  fly  like  birds,  swim  like  fish,  strut  like  the  peacock, 
buzz  like  the  bee,  croak  and  hop  like  the  frog,  climb  like  the 
bear,  and  act  the  part  and  make  the  noises  of  scores  of  creatures 
known  and  unknown,  wild  and  domestic.^  Thus  the  child 
often  gets  high  pleasure  and  participates  in  the  life  of  plants, 
flowers,  and  trees,  and  feels  more  keenly  the  power  of  the  rocks, 
mountains,  sea,  sun,  moon,  storm,  morning,  evening,  and  thus 
restores  in  and  for  itself  in  its  nascent  hours,  the  now  too  often 
lost  appreciation  of  nature,  every  item  of  which  has  sometime 
and  somewhere  been  an  object  of  worship,  and  lay  deep  and 
betimes  a  basis  of  the  love  of  the  w'orld,  of  man,  and  of  God. 
The  importance  of  cadenced  movements  as  organs,  first  of 
interest,  and  later  of  knowledge  which  psychogenetic  students 
are  now  revealing  is  very  great.  Here  again  the  child  is  be- 
coming a  key  to  unlock  the  secrets  of  the  stages  in  the  devel- 
opment of  the  race,  and  vice  versa,  racial  history  sheds  light 
upon  individual  development. 

Another  source  of  dancing  is  pure  play.  The  capering  and 
prancing  exuberance  of  animal  spirits,  the  fund  of  superfluous 
vitality,  is  the  purest  joy  in  the  world,  far  beyond  that  which 
sense,  wealth,  and  fame  can  give.  This  source  of  dancing  is 
most  unformed.  Even  trifling  delights  make  children  and 
primitives  leap  and  shout  as  if  drunk  with  joy;  so,  too,  pain 
and  grief  have  their  motor  utterances,  if  yet  more  crude  and 
unritualized.  There  are  dances  of  pity,  anger,  fear,  jealousy, 
and  most  of  all  of  love,  so  that  every  cardinal  emotion  is  thus 
shown  forth  and  may  thus  be  strengthened  and  purified  or 
degraded  and  repressed  by  this  complex  quality. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  history  of  dancing  shows  that  for 
most  races,  and  in  most  ages,  the  religious  motive  predomi- 

*  See  chap,  i,  p.  25. 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND    PANTOMIME  63 

nates.  For  about  every  known  savage  tribe  their  religion, 
which  generally  forms  a  far  larger  part  of  their  life  than  does 
ours,  has  dances  as  its  chief  forms  of  service.  To  them  these 
are  holy  passion  plays  as  sacred  as  the  communion  service  to 
Christians.  The  dreaded  "  ghost  dance  "  of  our  Indians  is 
pathetic  devotion  to  the  souls  of  all  the  great  dead  of  the  tribe 
with  which  they  commune.  There  are  dances  to  the  buffalo, 
snake,  eagle,  sun,  moon,  crocodile,  trees,  corn,  rice,  and  other 
crops ;  dances  for  rain  and  everything  essential  to  the  life  of  the 
tribe  even  with  the  elements  of  prayer  and  totemism  strangely 
and  inexplicably  mixed.  There  are  dances  for  men,  women, 
children,  and  slaves;  for  the  celebration  of  birth,  marriage, 
death ;  to  commemorate  anniversaries,  war,  disease,  pestilence, 
drouth  and  famine,  in  all  of  which  the  souls  of  the  cory- 
bantes  commune  with  gods,  the  souls  of  ancestors,  or  spirits 
that  bless  or  curse.  To  learn  a  new  religion  they  must 
learn  its  dances  and  its  processionals,  rituals,  forms,  and  pos- 
tures. Savage  devotees  often  dance  themselves  into  a  frenzy 
and  when  they  fall  are  thought  to  be  in  ecstatic  com- 
munion with  the  Divine,  like  the  rapt  Sybil.  Thus  the  soul 
rises  to  communion  with  both  the  dead  and  the  gods  in  vision 
and  is  thought  to  be  converted  or  to  attain  immortality.  Many 
of  these  dances  are  thought  to  illustrate  "  the  other  world  " 
conduct.  Heaven,  says  an  Eastern  poet,  is  "  one  long  mystic 
dance,  with  the  stars  sweeping  ever  on  with  cadenced  action  to 
the  music  of  the  orbs  of  light." 

Perhaps  next  to  the  dances  of  religion  come  those  of  love, 
in  its  loftiest  and  also  in  its  grossest  and  most  animal  forms. 
Between  its  extremes,  dances  of  phallic  mysteries,  and  the  love 
that  scorns  death  and  is  fixed  on  the  good,  beautiful  and  the 
true,  what  a  range!  If  love  dances  degrade,  they  can  also 
exhalt  and  purify  as  well  as  long-circuit  passion  and  vicariate 
for  its  bestialism  as  few  other  things  can  do.  The  cake-walk 
is  perhaps  the  closest  human  analogy  to  the  showing  off  or 
balzing  and  other  forms  of  animal  courtshij)  that  are  so  potent 
in  sexual  selection.  By  pantomimic  dances  also  the  stages  and 
forms  of  falling  in  love,  of  coyness,  unconscious  inclination, 
progressive  fascination  and  final  conquest,  can  be  set  forth  in 
symlx)lic  and  typical  gestures  more  expressive  and  truer  to  life 
than  the  words  of  romance  or  jx^etry  can  ever  be.     Here,  too, 


64  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

etiquette  and  convention  are  almost  as  important  as  they  are 
in  worship.  For  no  other  class  of  dance  are  both  sexes  neces- 
sary, for  under  this  form  most  social  dances  fall  although  they 
constitute  altogether  a  very  small  portion  of  and  are  on  the 
whole  far  from  showing  ideal  situations  and  relations  between 
swains  and  maidens.  These  can  be  made  both  alteratives  and 
vents  rather  than  stimulators  of  passion. 

Then  come  war  dances,  from  those  of  savages  to  the 
Pyrrhic  and  Martian,  of  which  marching  and  military  evolu- 
tions have  preserved  something  of  the  old  spirit,  as  we  see  in 
the  way  in  which  the  fife  and  drum  bring  a  flush  of  heroism  and 
courage  even  to  dastard  hearts.  In  these  ways  we  find  these 
four — industry,  religion,  love,  and  war,  playing  upon  our 
muscles  in  idealized  situations  and  preforming  the  soul  by 
determining  how  it  will  act  when  these  passions  are  at  their 
acme. 

Another  great  role  of  dancing  is,  as  we  have  seen,  acting 
out  history,  and  mythology,  setting  forth  the  records  of  the 
past  with  maximal  insistence  at  every  point  on  the  motor  ele- 
ments with  the  best  elocutionary  and  dramatic  accompaniments. 
Thus  we  not  only  fix  in  memory  but  vitalize  by  bringing  home 
to  the  heart  and  life  great  personages  and  events,  so  that  we 
have  here  a  new  way  of  teaching  history.  Festivities  and  cele- 
brations rehearse  events  in  condensed  and  symbolic  form  until 
they  stand  out  as  real  and  are  etched  into  the  soul  not  only  of 
the  actors,  but  of  the  spectators.  Thus  early  archives  are 
written  not  in  letters  but  in  the  language  of  these  motion 
pictures ;  not  laid  away  to  mold  but  kept  fresh  and  transmitted 
by  periodic  rehearsal ;  and  thus  not  only  the  dead  but  mythical 
personages  and  imaginary  events  work  their  culture  effects. 
In  these  ways  muscles  vitalize  the  past  for  the  young  and  here 
despite  much  crudity  and  error  we  are  probably  beginning  a 
new  and  interesting  line  of  festal  presentations  destined  to 
place  a  very  important  but  lost  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the 
pedagogue. 

In  this  broad  humanistic  sense  dancing  had  become  almost 
a  lost  art.  Its  traces,  of  course,  inevitably  tend  to  vanish  un- 
less it  is  assiduously  practiced  because,  despite  the  ancient  and 
still  more  modern  attempts  at  graphic  record,  we  have  still  no 
effective  mode  of  preserving  these  save  oral  tradition.     The 


VALUE    OF    DANCING   AND    PANTOMIME  65 

exact  form  of  every  ancient  dance  is  lost  and  our  knowledge  of 
them  is  largely  put  together  from  incidental  descriptions  and 
from  art  representations  of  postures  and  poses.  The  great 
Mysteries  were  chiefly  celebrated  by  their  aid  in  all  the  coun- 
tries about  the  Mediterranean  which  were  commemorated  cen- 
turies before  Christ  and  in  the  gradual  reinterpretation  of 
which  we  are  coming  to  realize  that  regeneration  and  Euchar- 
istic  beliefs  and  practices  instituted  by  Christianity  were  sacred 
and  inviolable  secrets  which  no  celebrant  might  reveal.  No 
other  art,  therefore,  is  so  fugitive,  so  difficult  to  represent  by 
any  method  of  notation,  and  hence  its  most  significant  and 
widespreading  forms  have  sunk  to  oblivion,  but  the  instinct 
remains  in  every  thoroughly  vitalized  soul. 

Among  the  signs  of  revival  are  a  new  sense  of  the  charm 
and  infection  of  dancing.  A  large  proportion  of  average 
modern  men  are  not  physically  overworked,  for  machines, 
sitting,  and  indoor  life  have  relieved  them  of  dnidgery  and 
hence  doubtless  increased  the  tendency  to  physical  spontaneity. 
Among  our  data  are  the  confessions  of  many  mature  people 
who  feel  impelled  to  expose  themselves  to  the  provocative  of 
"  kicky  "  music,  some  of  whom  pull  down  the  curtains  at 
home  and  dance  in  a  way  that  would  doubtless  make  a  master 
of  the  art  groan,  to  all  sorts  of  music,  from  classic  and  sacred 
to  the  latest  popular  song  or  twostep.  The  pianola  has  con- 
tributed somewhat  to  this  revival  and  many  have  found  it  a 
wholesome  and  refreshing  exercise,  rivaling  golf,  bicycling, 
boating,  or  at  least  a  pleasant  variant  from  these.  This  kind 
of  dancing  is  from  its  very  nature  le  pas  setil  and  every  step 
is  an  individual  creation  made  on  the  spot. 

A&^in»  gymnastics  are  becoming  aesthetic,  and  mere  acro- 
batics and  physical  culture  for  their  own  sake,  if  not  drifting 
danceward,  are  used  as  setting-up  exercises  and  as  correlative. 
In  colleges,  normal  schools,  etc.,  this  higher  dancing  is  now 
taught,  often  under  a  number  of  euphonistic  names,  as  cal- 
isthenics, etc.,  and  on  the  wall  of  one  room  I  have  seen  a  motto, 
"  Motion  for  emotion."  Younger  high  school  girls  have  de- 
cidedly greater  aptitude,  need,  and  liking  for  this  than  boys. 

I  lately  saw  some  scores  of  country  female  teachers  at  a  sum- 
mer school,  clad  in  proper  loose  dress  with  short  skirts,  beginning 
these  exercises;  and  a  stiffen,  more  conscious  group  could   hardly 
6 


66  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

be  found.  To  move  the  limbs  sideways,  front,  and  back,  lift  the  feet 
three  inches  from  the  floor,  seemed  so  hard  for  body  and  mind  as 
to  be  almost  cruel.  At  the  end  of  six  weeks  I  saw  them  again,  and 
while  by  no  means  accomplished  in  the  art,  the  gain  in  form,  grace, 
and  harmony  of  movement  was  amazing.  Limbs,  trunk,  arms,  neck, 
now  moved  as  if  not  on  rusty  hinges  but  on  newly  oiled  joints,  and 
nearly  all  followed  the  course  to  the  end,  sometimes  at  the  expense 
of  other  courses.  Interest  grew  and  the  faces  had  lost  the  rather 
stolid,  sodden  look,  and  many  of  them  actually  beamed  as  the  hour 
progressed  with  the  joy  of  life,  and  some  showed  a  most  whole- 
some abandon  to  it.  At  any  rate,  this  class  hour  was  the  happiest 
of  all  to  those  not  too  euphorious  lives.  So  in  many  a  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
gymnasium,  in  very  many  parks  and  playgrounds,  roof  and  pier  gar- 
dens, sand  yards,  and  not  a  few  church  basements,  dancing  under 
various  names  is  taught,  and  everywhere  with  great  interest  and  ex- 
cellent results.  A  clerical  trustee  of  a  church  girls'  school,  having 
heard  the  pupils  were  taught  to  dance,  preached  vehemently  against 
it,  but  later,  seeing  the  same  system  in  operation  elsewhere  and  told 
it  was  rhythmic  physical  culture,  he  became  first  interested,  then  en- 
thusiastic,  and   finally   took  private   lessons   himself. 

In  one  girls'  college  I  lately  saw  an  afternoon  festival  with  a 
charming  background  of  hill,  water,  and  wood,  in  which  a  hundred 
seniors  rehearsed  with  costumes,  poses,  and  mystical  music  how  Pan 
got  a  soul  from  Syrinx;  and  the  oreads,  or  mountain  nymphs,  first 
appeared  in  gray ;  hamadryads,  spirits  of  the  oaks,  in  delicate  green, 
sought  their  trees,  the  naiads  of  the  water,  in  iridescent  drapery, 
played  with  the  fountain.  Pan  and  his  troop  of  Fauns,  in  dull  red, 
danced  very  eloquently.  Syrinx's  nymphs,  in  white,  were  joyous 
with  flower  garlands.  These  evolutions  and  the  artistic  scene  of  the 
action  of  the  story  gave  a  set  of  sensations  which  I  fancy  quite 
new  to  the  modern  world  since  ancient  Greece.  It  was  music  in 
motion,  with  endless  suggestions,  but,  like  everything  of  this  sort, 
utterly  indescribable  save  to  one  who  has  seen  it.  The  culture  ef- 
fect, too,  of  imparting  interest  for  all  that  is  suggested  by  the  preg- 
nant word  Greek,  although  it  cannot  yet  be  fathomed  by  psychology, 
is  a  valuable  and  assured  thing.  In  this  institution  the  course  of  in- 
struction is  calendared  "  natural  dancing,"  as  it  should  be. 

Thus  we  already  see  that  dancing"  covers  a  very  wide  field. 
Perhaps  it  begins  with  the  earliest  sense  of  rhythm  which  some 
observers  of  infancy  find  when,  delicately  patting  the  mouth 
of  a  cooing  baby,  they  find  its  attention  singularly  arrested  and 
charmed.  It  at  any  rate  expands  all  the  way  from  periodic 
scansion,  intonations,  college  yells,  vestments,  up  to  the  sen- 
tence sense,  which  cadences  and  sets  pace  to  thought  and  gives 
to  it  a  body  and  control,  preforming  style,  manners,  enriching 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND    PANTOMIME  67 

emotional  life,  putting  in  touch  with  the  past,  as  one  of  the 
best  organs  of  recapitulation  of  the  life  of  the  race  by  the  in- 
dividual, limbering  overworked  sinews  and  muscles,  and  giv- 
ing nerve  to  flabby  city  children,  whether  pampered  or  neg- 
lected. Thus  home,  church,  school,  are  winning  back  what 
they  had  been  too  ready  to  give  over  to  the  devil. 

All  psychic  changes  are  expressed  in  motion,  and  among 
all  movements  of  the  human  body  there  came  at  a  certain  stage 
of  evolution  one  group  of  movements,  viz.,  those  of  lungs, 
throat,  and  larynx,  which  perhaps  quite  unexpectedly  produced 
noises.  These  movements  were  originally  no  more  addressed 
to  the  ear  than  any  other  form  of  activity.  Thus  out  of  autom- 
atisms and  reflexes  language  slowly  evolved  as  man  became 
more  and  more  social  and  as  need  of  concurrent  activity  and 
of  pooling  on  perceptions  of  one  for  the  benefit  of  the  com- 
munity increased.  The  intricate  expressive  movements  which 
were  its  matrix,  after  having  accompanied  it  with  great  pro- 
fusion of  movements  during  its  early  stages,  tended  to  decline 
as  it  became  effective  because  they  were  no  longer  necessary 
and  involved  waste  and  energy.  Man  to-day  has  little  con- 
ception of  what  gesture  means  and  can  do.  Every  single  move- 
ment and  pose  of  the  body  has  meaning.  We  have  alluring 
glimpses  of  this  original  language  common  to  all  men  in 
pantomime  and  in  the  more  conventional  forms  of  it  in  the 
various  sign  languages  that  have  been  developed.^  Changes  of 
pitch  and  tempo  are  in  a  sense  a  dancing  accompaniment  to 
words  and  the  thoughts  they  express.  This  only  needs 
more  elaborate  gesticulation  to  become  eloquence  and  choric 
orchestration  in  the  broad  Greek  sense,  for  this  was  the  origin 
of  both  song  and  drama.  Perhaps  music  was  first  to  sweeten 
words;  and  dancing  was  a  motor,  and  song  an  auditory,  ac- 
companiment of  speech.  Thus,  if  thought  is  repressed  action, 
dancing  is  thought  expressed  by  the  movement  in  which  it 
originated ;  and  so,  again,  a  part  of  its  pleasure  is  reversionary. 
But  in  English,  and  especially  in  this  country,  our  speech  has 
dropped  evervthing  not  necessary  for  conveying  meaning.  It 
is  only  the  savage  who  talks  with  his  whole  body,  or  the  Ital- 

*  See  Wundt,  W.  M.,  Volkerpsychologie.  Bd.  I.  Engclmann,  Leipzig,  1900. 
See  also  W,  P.  Clark,  Indian  sign  language.  Hamersly,  Philadelphia,  1884, 
443  P' 


68  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ian  laborer,  who  cannot  do  manual  work  and  talk  at  the  same 
time  because  gestures  are  so  essential  and  habitual.  The  Eng- 
lish language  is  thus  more  remote  than  any  other  from  this 
primitive  condition.  Indeed,  our  very  printers'  fonts  contain 
more  e's  than  any  other  vowel,  and  this  is  the  thinnest  and 
farthest  front  in  the  mouth,  requiring  the  least  effort,  while 
the  consonants,  especially  labials  and  dentals,  make  up  the 
great  body  of  our  speech.  This  involves  gain,  but  also  loss, 
both  vocal  and  muscular,  and  probably  tends  to  mental  des- 
iccation and  decay.  Now  it  is  this  tendency  against  which  one 
of  the  best  influences  of  dancing  in  the  old  sense  of  the  word 
is  directed,  and  which  it  tends  in  no  small  degree  to  overcome. 
Why  should  our  thin  superficial  speech,  which  is  made  still 
more  unnatural  by  writing  and  reading  where  the  auditory 
element  is  eliminated,  be  improved?  Here  we  stand  before  a 
great  question,  the  answer  to  which  in  very  concise  terms  runs 
along  the  following  lines.  Speech  that  is  now  slowly  approxi- 
mating a  mere  whisper,  is  not  so  genuine  and  hearty  an  ex- 
pression of  psychic  activity  as  a  language  that  involves  all  the 
motor  possibilities  and  combinations  of  the  body.  Our  atten- 
uated utterances  play  over  the  surface  of  the  soul,  as  it  were ; 
are  less  deep  and  honest,  although  perhaps  more  subtle.  Even 
lying  is  easier  when  it  involves  a  slight  articulatory  element 
than  when  it  involved  widespread  and  forcible  innovation 
made  up  of  both  automatic  and  voluntary  elements.  Again, 
such  speech  is  further  removed  from  action  and  even  conduct 
than  primitive  language  could  possibly  be,  and  hence  more 
readily  lends  itself  to  casuistry,  evasion,  and  perversion  of 
truth.  It  is  such  language  that  is  most  often  used  to  conceal 
reality,  and  it  certainly  does  not  favor  the  type  of  character 
that  is  straightforward,  simple,  forcible,  and  decided.  Mere 
talkiness  is  a  more  easily  manageable  vehicle  of  prevarication 
even  than  mere  acting,  although  it  is  indefinitely  harder  to  act 
out  a  lie  than  to  speak  one.  Language,  therefore,  in  its  mod- 
ern types,  tends  to  produce  a  degenerated  psychosis  of  gossip ; 
chatter  and  most  talk  does  not  vent  or  reveal  the  depths  of 
the  soul,  but  only  ephemeral  shadows  that  flit  over  its  surface. 
It  is  this  evil,  which  has  many  far-reaching  consequences  for 
the  health  and  robustness  of  the  soul  quite  as  much  as  of  the 
body,  that  the  ideal  dancing  teacher  seeks  to  correct.     The 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND   PANTOMIME  69 

ideal  purpose  of  instruction  in  this  domain  is  to  strengthen 
utterance,  to  make  it  more  hearty  and  deep  by  restoring  the 
motor  elements  that  have  degenerated,  and  to  enable  man 
once  more  to  talk  with  his  whole  organism,  and  thereby  to 
bring  about  a  new  and  wholesome  unity  of  action  between  the 
soul  and  the  body.  That  this  would  make  for  moral  efficiency, 
for  transparency  of  life,  and  will  reduce  the  element  of  deceit 
and  distrust,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  To  affirm  and  deny  now 
involve  a  momentum  and  carry  a  degree  of  conviction  impos- 
sible before.  It  is  the  action  of  the  orator  that  sways  all  be- 
fore him.  Thus,  rehearsing  and  enriching  the  old  motor  ac- 
tivities of  the  race  in  dancing  form  and  making  them  a  better 
expression  of  feeling  and  of  reactions  to  experience,  we  may 
help  to  restore  the  lost  motor  accompaniments  of  thought 
itself,  now  stripped  of  so  much  of  its  pristine  vigor  and  re- 
duced chiefly,  as  many  researches  recently  summarized  by  De 
Sanctis  show,  to  the  changing  tension  of  from  one  to  three 
muscles  of  the  forehead.  Thus  it  has  lost  intensity  and  vivid- 
ness while  gaining  in  range  and  abstraction.  These  exercises 
will  tend  to  make  thinking  natural,  sane,  and  vigorous,  instead 
of  the  faint  motor  expressions  of  thought  seen  in  muscle  read- 
ing, and  which  are  only  attenuated  relics  of  the  more  vivid 
and  intense  psychic  states  and  processes  from  which  modern 
thinking  has  shrunken.  True  dancing  sets  it  again  in  scene 
as  the  mother  lye  restores  defaced  crystals.  This  also  cannot 
fail  to  increase  honesty,  frankness,  openness,  and  to  make  con- 
cealment and  hypocrisy  harder  for  the  muscular  system  as  a 
whole  to  lie  than  for  words  to  do  so.  Bastian  urges  that  we 
must  conserve  and,  where  possible,  restore  the  fresh  first 
thoughts  of  primitive  mankind,  and  rhythmical  training  of 
the  body  aids  in  doing  so. 

As  to  the  function  of  dancing  as  an  organ  of  understand- 
ing and  feeling  music,  I  believe  it  is  not  going  too  far  to  urge 
that  no  music  of  any  kind  is  or  can  be  fully  comprehended 
without  motor  accompaniment.  If  a  player  or  singer  under- 
stands music  because  he  is  performing  it  better  than  the  mere 
passive  listener,  when  to  both  it  is  new,  do  not  cadenced  steps, 
poses,  and  movements  also  help  to  deeper  appreciation  ?  Music 
always  means  motion,  or  at  least  posture.  We  see  this  in 
catchy  marches  with  strongly  accentuated  rhythm,  not  to  speak 


70  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

of  music  that  is  descriptive  of  waves,  winds,  and  storm,  but  I 
maintain  that  all  true  music  prompts  us  to  act  it  out.  A  motor- 
minded  genius  occasionahy  appears  who  interprets  music  to 
others  thus.  Rapid  hstening  is  only  one  and  a  psychologically 
very  small  element  in  man's  natural  response  to  it.  We  really 
feel  and  know  music  in  the  muscles,  and  its  phrases  are  rightly 
called  motives.  Thus  in  a  modern  concert  we  only  enjoy 
music  in  a  lazy,  decadent  way,  and,  if  the  future  is  to  be  more 
virile,  both  composers  as  well  as  hearers  will  be  benefited  by 
the  new  interpretation  of  it  as  efferent  poetry.  This,  too,  is 
a  larger  interpretation  of  dancing.  Much  national  music  is 
simply  based  upon  national  dances,  and  can  only  be  imper- 
fectly understood  when  these  dances  have  become  obsolete. 
Thus  to  revive  such  dances,  or  to  create  others  from  the  music, 
is  necessary  for  the  completion  of  the  latter. 

Thus,  again,  the  wondrous  charm  of  dancing  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  when  unconstrained  and  free  these  movements  still 
really  express  those  activities  in  which  our  forebears  uttered 
most  of  the  energies  of  their  bodies  and  their  souls.  It  re- 
stores ancient  body  habits  dwindled  to  rudiments  in  the  forms 
of  modern  industries  which  lay  stress  only  on  special  activities, 
for  dancing  is  generic.  It  not  only  strengthens  the  muscles, 
but  gives  us  more  control  over  them. 

Gesture,  Pantomime,  and  Mimesis. — Gestures  are  move- 
ments addressed  to  the  eye  with  the  purpose  of  communica- 
tion. They  constitute  sign  language,  and  sematology  is  the 
systematic  knowledge  we  have  of  them.  They  are  written  in 
the  air,  and  despite  many  attempts  have  had  as  yet  no  ade- 
quate notation,  and,  till  the  kinetoscope,  could  not  be  recorded, 
for  verbal  descriptions  of  them  are  cumbrous,  partial,  and 
often  ambiguous.  Loss  of  the  power  to  understand  them, 
asemia,  is  almost  as  basal  as  apraxia,  and  involves  more  funda- 
mental neuro-psychic  lesion  than  do  the  aphasias.  They  may 
be  limited  to  the  face  or  hand  or  even  to  parts  of  them,  or  may 
involve  nearly  all  the  voluntary  muscles.  Gestures  have  at- 
tained a  high  degree  of  development  among  the  Indians  of 
the  United  States  because  the  population  has  been  sparse; 
there  were  fifty-five  radically  different  linguistic  stocks  un- 
intelligible to  each  other,  and  intertribal  must  constantly  sup- 
plement intratribal  communication.     Hunting,  too,  favors  si- 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND    PANTOMIME  71 

lence  and  signs.  ^  On  the  prairies  and  on  the  west  coast,  where 
languages  are  most  diverse,  the  Chinook  jargon  arose,  as  did 
pigeon  EngHsh  in  China;  such  mongrel  species  of  language 
need  to  be  supplemented  by  florid  gesticulation.  Among  the 
Cistercian  monks,  with  their  vow  of  silence,  a  highly  arbitrary 
and  artificial  system  was  evolved.  Deaf  mutes,  too,  not  only 
tend  to  develop  signs,  but  learn  them  so  readily  that  those 
who  insist  on  the  articulation  method,  as  do  the  Germans  and 
most  Americans  as  opposed  to  the  French  scheme  of  develop- 
ing natural  signs  which  enables  them  better  to  communicate 
with  each  other  but  less  with  normal  people,  find  it  very  hard 
to  repress  this  instinctive  mode  of  conveying  meaning.^ 
Gestures  are  favored  by  secrecy,  and  the  Sicilian  Vespers 
were  said  to  have  been  planned  without  writing  or  vocaliza- 
tion ;  and  the  subjects  of  Dionysius,  the  tyrant  of  ancient  Syra- 
cuse, resorted  to  them  when  speech  was  forbidden. .  Operators 
in  factories,  amidst  the  noise  of  machinery,  have  become  to 
some  degree  histrionic  adepts.  Lively  feelings,  a  vivid  imag- 
ination, and  great  vitality  predispose  to  this  primitive  mode 
of  utterance,  and  civilization  is  often  said  to  reduce  this  an- 
cient seasoning  and  coloration  of  speech.  Sittl  ^  has  shown 
in  great  detail  how  highly  it  was  developed  in  classical  an- 
tiquity as  an  integral  part  of  religious  and  other  festive  dances 
which  were  often  very  pantomimic  on  the  stage,  with  three 
gestural  systems — cordax  for  comedy,  emilia  for  tragedy,  and 
sicinis  for  satire — partly  because  the  audience  was  so  large 
and  masks  precluded  facial  mimesis  and  modified  vocalization. 
Canon  de  Jorio,  in  a  great  work  *  with  many  pictorial  illus- 
trations, has  shown  how  in  the  Neapolitans  the  gestures  of 
ancient  Rome  not  only  survived,  but  became  still  more  devel- 
oped as  expressions  of  a  vivacious  diathesis  which  so  predis- 

*  .See  the  voluminous  and  illustrated  collection  of  these  in  Garrick  Mailcr}''s 
Sign  Language  among  North  American  Indians.  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of 
Ethnology,   1879-80,  pp.  26<;-552. 

'  See  J.  Heidsiek,  Dor  Tuubstumme  und  seine  Sprache.  Woywod,  Breslau, 
rSSg.  318  p.  .See,  also,  Annals  of  Deaf  Mutes.  Washington,  1S75,  and  Rejx>rts 
of  the  Hartforfl  Institute-  for  Deaf  Mutes,  where  the  natural  signs  wen-  long  used. 

'Sitll,  Karl,  Die  (leliiinlin  <ler  Gricchcn  und  Romer.  Trulmir,  Leipzig,  1890, 
386  p. 

«  Jorio,  Andrea  di,  La  Mimica  degli  Antichi  investigata  ncl  gcstire  Najxjletano. 
Napoli,  1832,  380  p. 


72  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

poses  to  it  that  the  rower  drops  his  oar  and  the  day  laborer 
his  tool  to  answer,  and,  in  the  dark,  speech  seems  almost  tame 
and  bloodless.  This  he  ascribes  in  part  to  an  exceptional  in- 
nate liveliness  of  temperament  and  objective  modes  of  thought 
and  life  aided  by  the  momentum  of  both  tradition  and  heredity. 
Austin  ^  has  shown  how  the  orators  of  ancient  and  modern 
times  made  their  art  action,  and  many  more  recent  rhetori- 
cians have  classified  the  position  and  movements  of  hands, 
arms,  feet,  legs,  face,  and  the  entire  body,  and  would  em- 
phasize nearly  every  line  of  public  address  by  graphic  and 
vehement  activities  to  enhance  the  effectiveness  of  their  words. 
Many  a  writer  from  Engel  to  Piderit,^  to  say  nothing  of 
rhetorical  and  dramatic  schools  from  Henischius  to  Delsarte, 
have  striven  to  conserve  or  restore  the  old,  deep-seated  instinct, 
believing  that  vivid  and  intense  sentiment  of  conviction  of 
truth  which  the  world  desires  and  also  the  complete  dramatic 
illusion  of  reality  could  be  both  felt  by  the  speaker  and  con- 
veyed to  others  best  by  talking  not  with  the  tiny  muscles  in- 
volved in  articulation,  but  with  nearly  all  the  possibilities  of 
voluntary  motion. 

These  are  the  influences  that  have  favored  the  survival 
and  development  of  gesture  or  prevented  it  from  lapsing 
toward  the  position  of  a  lost  art,  but  they  have  also  resulted 
in  the  addition  of  many  artificial  and  conventional  signs  often 
very  hard  to  distinguish  from  those  which  are  most  immediate 
and  natural.  Some  gestures  consist  of  tracing  outlines  or 
drawing  in  the  air,  and,  if  recorded,  would  be  very  like  some 
of  the  pictographs  of  Egypt  or  the  script  of  old  Mexico,  for 
some  of  their  characters  seem  only  written  gesture.  Gesture 
has  some  points  of  very  vital  contact  with  plastic  art  and  with 
heraldry,  and  shades  into  primitive  modes  of  dancing  by  im- 
perceptible gradations.  Some  gestures  are  instinctive  and  uni- 
versal among  all  people,  and  others,  like,  e.  g.,  the  manual 
alphabet  of  the  deaf  mutes,  are  deliberate  inventions.  Gestures 
are  often  classified,  by  none  more  rigidly  than  by  Wundt,^ 

'Gilbert  Austin:  Chironomia.     Cadell,  London,  1806,    583  p. 

^  Piderit,  Theodor,  La  mimique  et  la  physiognomonie.  Bailliere,  Paris,  1888, 
280  p. 

3  Wundt,  W.  M.,  Volkerpsychologie.  Die  Sprache.  I.  Theil.  I  Bd.  Engel- 
mann,  Leipzig,  1900,  pp.  131-243. 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND   PANTOMIME  73 

who  makes  them  to  be  referensive,  imitative,  codesignative, 
and  symbolic,  and  even  describes  their  very  etymology  and 
syntax  to  all  such  rubrics  and  categories,  which,  while  helpful 
to  the  novice  in  this  field  of  study,  are  inadequate,  and  seem 
first  artificial  and  then  encumbrances  as  he  proceeds.  Social 
forms  and  ceremonies  often  involve  gestures,  and  these  tend 
to  become  stereotyped,  and  then  outgrown  and  thrown  ofif  by 
exuviation  like  fashions.  Instead  of  prostrating  and  kowtow- 
ing, we  bow,  scrape,  and  courtesy;  then  nod,  then  wave  the 
hand  without  lifting  it  near  the  head,  and,  instead  of  embrac- 
ing and  kissing,  we  touch  finger  tips.  For  Spencer,^  gestures 
are  motor  discharges  of  the  same  kind  but  of  less  intensity  than 
the  movements  which  once  satisfied  the  feeling  that  caused 
them.  Out  of  a  vast  profusion  the  fittest  are  slowly  selected. 
For  Darwin  ^  they  are  survivals  of  movements  once  directly  or 
indirectly  useful,  if  not  purposeful,  the  opposite  movements 
expressing  opposite  feelings  and  intensity  causing  overflow 
into  unaccustomed  channels.  Gratiolet  and  Piderit  think 
gesture  best  explained  by  reference  to  imaginary  objects  of 
sense.  They  reproduce  either  faintly  or  in  an  exaggerated 
way  what  we  should  do  if  the  object  of  experience  was  pres- 
ent. Hence,  their  abundance  and  intensity  are  as  that  of  our 
mental  images.  All  these  views  are  not  only  helpful  but  true, 
but  each  of  them  only  of  gestures  of  a  certain  type,  while  others 
are  left  quite  unexplained  by  all  the  theories  hitherto  proposed. 
To  understand  gestures  we  must  go  far  back  of  the  con- 
scious purpose  of  communication  and  the  broad  general  prin- 
ciple that  every  psychic  act  or  change  is  attended  by  a  physical 
one.  Not  only  are  the  emotions  essentially  motive,  as  the  term 
implies,  with  concomitant,  vascular,  cardiac,  intestinal,  meta- 
bolic, and  secretive  changes  such  as  blushing,  pallor,  palpitation, 
relaxation  of  sphincters,  tears,  horripilation,  nausea,  and  with 
modification  of  all  the  activities  of  the  involuntary  or  non-stri- 
ated muscles,  but  thought  and  will  also  always  play  upon  volun- 
tary muscles,  causing  changes  of  tension,  and  minimal  as  well 
as  maximal  movements.    The  superciliary  and  corrugator  mus- 

'  S|)encer,  Herbert,  The  Principles  of  Psychology.  Ap[)1ett)n,  Ni-w  York,  1883, 
vol.  2,  p.  336-366. 

*  Darwin,  C.  R.,  The  Expression  of  llie  Emotions  in  Man  and  .\nimals.  Ap- 
plcton,  New  York,  1873,  p.  340-374. 


74  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

cles  have  been  called  the  muscles  of  thought,  and  their  activity, 
gestures  of  intellection ;  and  it  is  a  familiar  fact  that  planchette 
and  so-called  mind  reading  is  nothing  but  muscle  reading. 
Thought  would  probably  be  impossible  v^'ith  the  most  perfect 
brain  if  all  the  egresses  were  blocked.  Efferent  processes  con- 
stantly play  not  only  upon  vocal  organs,  but  upon  every  part 
and  process  of  the  body,  and  every  psychosis  has  or  is  its  own 
somatosis.  Psychology  is  at  least  not  yet  able  to  demonstrate 
the  existence  of  a  single  sensation  that  is  purely  afferent,  and 
that  leaves  the  emissive  tracts  unaffected,  and  animal  life  itself 
is  predominantly,  if  not  essentially,  motile,  i.  e.,  expressive. 
From  that  broad  basis  a  truly  genetic  doctrine  of  speech  must 
take  its  departure.  Pure  feelings,  thoughts,  volitions  are  ab- 
stractions, and  even  sensations  are  only  stimulus  directives  of 
outward  currents  and  sensory  centers — are  only  more  intimate 
parts  of  the  objective  world,  the  essence  of  the  soul  being  the 
apparatus  or  function  of  response  which  alone  can  give  both 
reality  and  actuality  to  life,  inner  or  outer.  With  the  first 
animal,  the  first  convulsive  movement  is  also  the  very  ipsis- 
simal  essence  of  the  first  sense  of  pain,  and  the  same  principle 
holds  of  every  first  feeling  or  sensation  or  of  every  new  in- 
tensity of  either.  The  first  voluptuous  experience  was  the  first 
erection,  the  first  cry,  the  first  discomfort,  and  there  was  no 
content  or  inner  side.  The  latter  evolved  slowly  after  repeti- 
tions had  left  their  memory  traces  on  the  plastic  nerve  centers 
which  gradually  acquired  a  degree  of  independence  and  later 
some  power  of  initiative,  and  this,  once  a  mere  subjective  ac- 
companiment, still  later  transmits  its  effects  by  heredity,  so 
that  in  the  newborn  the  primal  somatic  origin  of  all  feeling 
states  is  less  pure.  This  view  must  not  obscure  the  law  that 
all  interior  states,  however,  arise  primordially  from  somatic 
changes,  and  the  brain,  which  is  the  unique  organ  of  registra- 
tion, can  record  nothing  else  than  the  results  of  bodily  re- 
sponses. The  law  that  life  is  response  is  seen  in  all  studies  of 
instinct  and  habits  of  animals  which  are  only  organic  memories, 
and  even  in  plant  physiology,  as  is  shown  by  the  experiments 
of  Bose.  Hence,  every  movement  in  the  animal  world  is  in 
a  very  generalized  and  fundamental  sense  the  matrix  of  its 
own  psyche.  Real,  natural,  and  instinctive  gestures  arise  out 
of  activities  from  which  they  are  at  least  one  and  perhaps 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND   PANTOMIME  75 

many  degrees  removed,  for  some  elements  of  reality  are  always 
wanting. 

Greeting  is  of  many  kinds.  Prostration,  kowtowing,  salaaming, 
grovelling,  striking  the  earth  with  the  forehead,  offering  the  neck 
to  be  trodden  on,  kissing  the  ground — these  are  attenuated  to  cour- 
tesy with  spreading  and  lifting  the  skirts,  bowing  profoundly,  often 
in  very  elaborate  ways,  dotting  the  hat,  once  as  a  symbol  of  freedom, 
removing  the  shoes,  washing  the  feet,  with  special  toilets  for  meet- 
ing great  personages,  and  finally  the  slight  nod  and  wave  of  the 
hand  toward,  but  not  touching,  the  head.  The  embrace  has  declined 
to  the  hand-clasp  and  shake,  or  even  touching  the  finger  tips,  where 
we  have,  too,  the  slang  gesture  of  shaking  one's  own  hand  upon 
seeing  an  acquaintance,  and  blowing  the  kiss.  Detailed  expressions 
of  joy  at  meeting  fine  down  to  a  faint,  flitting  smile  of  recognition. 
These  express  all  degrees  of  delight  at  meeting  others,  from  trans- 
ports of  rapture,  frisking,  and  capering,  or  highly  artificial  obei- 
sances down  to  mere  recognition,  and  then  pass  over  into  ignoring, 
cutting,  and  up  the  scale  of  hostile  manifestations  to  personal  con- 
flict. There  are  gestures  of  abject  servility  that  not  only  seem  to 
place  one's  life  in  the  hands  of  a  superior,  but  actually  invite  him 
to  take  it,  but  this  was  succeeded  as  the  world  advanced  in  demo- 
cratic ideas  of  equality  by  an  instinct  to  greet  others  precisely  as 
cordially  as  they  do  us.  A  part  of  what  is  called  manners  consists 
of  gestures  of  salutation,  and  mediates  instinctive  likes  and  dislikes 
on  the  instant,  and  courtesy  and  breeding  have  no  better  touch- 
stone. "  How  much  does  the  new  acquaintance  like  and  respect  me, 
and  how  much  shall  I  show  him  any  return,"  expresses  the  sub- 
dominant  and  ancient  state  of  mind.  From  similar  principles  arose 
formulae  of  subjection  in  war:  laying  down  arms,  saluting  the  vic- 
tor's flag,  passing  under  the  yoke,  surrendering  the  sword,  kissing 
the  conqueror's  feet,  embracing  his  knees,  etc.  Close  akin  are  many 
gestures  of  worship,  which  consist  of  voluntary  self-humiliation  be- 
fore a  divine  potentate.  Here,  again,  we  have  prostration,  even 
with  the  face  in  the  dust,  bowing  the  head,  kneeling,  invoking  mercy, 
various  gestures  of  contrition,  mourning  in  sackcloth  and  ashes, 
gestures  of  mortification  and  even  self-mutilation,  offering  one's 
self  up,  etc.  Many  acts  of  worship  are  only  gestures  of  reverence, 
adoration,  self-renunciation.  Man  slowly  ceased  to  cringe  and  cower 
before  the  gods,  and  learned  to  invoke  them  like  the  statue  of  the 
Greek  youth  in  prayer,  erect,  with  open,  upturned  face  and  arms  ex- 
tended in  welcome  and  in  petition. 

Being  strongly  motor-minded,  I  selected  and  listed  a  hun- 
dred serial  motor  operations  with  wliich  T  am  move  or  less 
familiar,  such  as  eating  a  piece  of  meat,  opening,  pouring,  and 
sipping  a  glass  of  Apollinaris ;  oj^ening  and  using  a  napkin, 


76  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

sawing  a  stick  of  wood,  shuffling  and  dealing  cards,  counting 
bills,  sharpening  a  razor  and  shaving,  striking  a  match  and 
smoking,  dressing  and  undressing,  playing  billiards,  throwing 
and  catching  a  ball,  writing,  taking  down,  opening,  and  read- 
ing a  book ;  loading  and  shooting,  playing  various  instruments, 
rowing,  tennis,  bowling,  shopping,  hoeing,  washing,  wring- 
ing, driving  a  nail,  peeling  an  apple,  folding  and  sealing  a 
letter,  making  a  fire,  prying  out  a  stone,  spinning  and  weaving, 
husking  corn,  chopping,  shoveling,  etc.,  all  requiring  manipu- 
lation, and  practiced  the  movements  involved  in  each  process, 
but  only  with  imaginary  objects  or  implements.  At  the  outset, 
those  before  whom  I  exhibited  interpreted  my  dumb  show 
correctly  in  every  case,  and  usually  with  a  promptness  that 
surprised  me.  I  was  still  more  astonished,  however,  to  find 
how  clumsy,  incorrect,  and  often  halting  were  my  efforts. 
Where  it  was  convenient  to  do  so,  I  practiced  alternating  with 
real  objects  or  tools,  and  then  without  them  in  pantomime, 
and  found  that,  while  I  could  thus  add  many  details  and 
greatly  increase  the  fidelity  of  my  mimicry,  the  latter  was  still 
very  inaccurate  in  particulars,  and  often  most  so  in  those  most 
habitual  and  automatic.  By  persistent  practice  some  of  these 
motor  compositions  grew  quite  elaborate,  and  the  vocabulary 
of  movement  items  multiplied,  and  I  almost  seemed  to  be 
handling  the  real  things.  It  was  often  difficult  to  avoid  exag- 
geration; facial  and  sometimes  interjectional  accompaniments 
were  hard  to  repress,  despite  the  unreality  of  it  all.  It  was 
a  vivid  language,  and  the  gymnastics  of  these  performances 
afforded  such  a  variety  of  exercises  that  they  seemed  to  open 
suggestions  for  a  new  hygiene  of  body  and  mind.  Such  active 
work  with  the  old  labor  canticles  that  once  accompanied  some 
of  them,  a  few  of  w^hich  are  now  being  restored  when  set  to 
appropriate  songs,  as  is  now  sometimes  done  in  the  movement 
games,  as  we  have  seen,  of  the  kindergarten,  also  now  receiv- 
ing much  attention,  as  it  did  two  or  three  centuries  ago  in 
training  for  the  stage  dancing  and  pantomime  as  well  as 
dramatic  schools.  This  work  is  highly  conducive  to  unity  and 
harmony  of  body  and  soul.  There  are  here  both  psychological 
and  pedagogical  possibilities  that  should  be  explored.  Such 
imitative  activities,  if  rightly  environed  and  sanely  used  in  the 
curriculum  of  motor  education,  cannot  fail  to  tend  to  idealize 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND   PANTOMIME  77 

labor  in  the  minds  of  children,  and  they  afford  just  those 
rudiments  of  primitive  and  even  modern  industries  and  occu- 
pations as  are  fitted  in  the  order  of  growth  to  give  betimes 
proper  insight  into  and  sympathy  with  these  aspects  of  both 
toil  and  play,  for  both  are  at  the  same  time  recapitulatory  and 
preparatory  for  a  large  domain  of  human  life.  They  give  a 
most  wholesome  stimulus  to  the  imagination,  and  also  quicken 
observation.  Such  abridged,  poetized  versions  of  character- 
istic human  activities  have  underlain  most  of  the  many  popular 
festivals  of  mediaeval  Europe,  in  which  the  processes  of  phys- 
ical toil  were  at  the  same  time  made  into  play  and  dance  and 
elevated  to  symbols  of  man's  lordship  over  nature,  while  some 
of  them  became  almost  sacraments  by  association  with  myths 
and  festive  rites. 

Many  other  rites  and  gestures  besides  those  for  general  com- 
munication express  social  and  personal  relations  to  our  fellow  men. 
Negation  is  shaking  of  the  head,  and  was  very  primitive.  Thus  the 
child  turns  from  its  mother's  breast  or  avoids  proffered  food.  This 
gesture  of  refusal  or  dissent  is  very  widespread,  although  some 
races,  like  the  Arabs,  toss  the  head  up  and  back,  clicking  the  tongue 
to  signify  breaking  off.  In  all  cases,  the  mouth  is  turned  away,  as 
if  the  original  "no"  meant  "I  will  not  eat  it."  This  gesture  may 
be  accompanied  by  turning  away  the  whole  body  and  manual  ges- 
tures of  rejection,  which  make  the  act  of  declination  more  emphatic. 
Instead  of  talking  face  to  face  in  harmony,  recusants  turn  from 
each  other  to  pursue  their  own  way  and  will.  Yes,  expressed  by 
nodding,  is  a  good  instance  of  a  contrary  meaning  uttered  by  a  con- 
trary movement.  The  bow,  or  assent,  was  perhaps  originally  ac- 
cepting food  by  inclining  the  head  to  grasp  it  with  lips  or  jaws. 
Now  it  is  accepting  another's  suggestion,  and  some  think  the  nod 
is  a  relic  of  subordination,  as  of  being  second  to  the  originator  and 
propounder  of  the  proposition,  and  to  that  extent  becoming  his  fol- 
lower. So  old  and  widely  intelligible  are  these  expressions  that  stiff- 
neckedness  means  inability  to  bow  in  agreement  or  obedience,  and  I 
have  heard  a  stubborn  man  described  as  prone  to  shake  his  head 
vigorously  when  alone;  but  meekness  is  typified  by  the  head  always 
lowered.  There  are  many  gestures  of  invitation :  beckoning  with 
the  finger,  with  palm  uppermost,  or  with  the  hand,  with  one  or  both 
palms,  holding  the  hands  out — all  of  which  mean  come.  But  its  op- 
posite, repulsion,  has  far  more  forms  and  shades  of  meaning.  Re- 
jection is  waving  away  or  pushing  off.  There  is  also  an  upward  or 
forward  movement  of  ejection,  or  throwing  out,  and  this  may 
be  emphasized  by  many  more  expHcit  gestures,  even  striking  and 
butting  and  simulated  forms  of  attack,  shaking  both  fists,  nodding 


78  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

obliquely  in  threat,  defiance,  with  raised  chin  and  perhaps  the  back 
of  the  fingers  bent  at  the  knuckles  beneath  it,  and  contempt  snaps 
and  even  twiddle  fingers,  while  the  famous  mono  cornata  (the  in- 
dex and  middle  finger  extended  horizontally  toward  a  person  or 
object,  with  the  thumb  and  other  fingers  folded),  Jorio  says,  has  in 
Southern  Italy  at  least  twenty  distinct  meanings,  such  as  avaunt, 
stop,  cease,  drop  it,  warding  off  an  evil  eye,  breaking  a  charm,  spell, 
or  hoodoo,  etc. 

Pointing  and  looking  designate  any  object,  real  or  imaginary,  in 
any  direction,  and  at  almost  any  distance,  and  so  does  drawing  its 
outline  in  the  air.  More  commonly,  however,  some  attribute  is 
selected  and  imitatively  suggested.  Rain,  e.  g.,  is  depicted  by  both 
hands  held  high,  with  wrists  and  fingers  limp  and  hanging  down; 
water  by  undulatory  movements  with  the  open  hand,  palm  down- 
ward; smoke  by  twirling  the  forefinger  upward  as  smoke  curls;  a 
stone  by  lifting  and  throwing  movements,  and  perhaps  pointing  to 
or  touching  the  teeth  to  indicate  its  hardness;  a  blaze,  candle,  or 
torch  by  blowing  on  the  erect  forefinger ;  a  tent  or  wigwam  by  cross- 
ing two  or  more  fingers;  a  tree  by  holding  the  hand  up,  with  fingers 
apart,  like  branches;  grass  by  some  movement  with  the  hand  held 
low,  and  growth  by  rhythmical  pulsing  movements  upward;  a  bird 
by  pecking  with  thumb  and  finger  together,  like  a  bill;  a  goat  by 
stroking  an  imaginary  beard;  an  ass  by  wagging  the  hands,  each 
side  of  the  head,  like  ears,  or  with  two  hands  together,  open,  with 
thumbs  for  ears  and  mouth  open  by  drawing  down  the  apposed  little 
fingers,  as  very  many  creatures  and  objects  can  be  represented  by 
hand-made  shadowgraphs,  in  the  production  of  which  variety  stage 
experts  sometimes  attain  great  proficiency,  as  was  and  still  is  seen 
in  the  shadow-play  theatres  of  Europe,  as  Miss  Curtis  has  described 
them;  an  ox  or  cuckold  by  a  gesKjre  of  horns;  a  ram  by  that  of 
butting;  a  horse  or  riding  by  two  fingers  of  one  hand  astride  the 
vertical  open  palm  of  the  other;  a  bear  by  imitating  its  paw  with 
the  hand ;  a  white  man  by  drawing  the  outline  of  a  stove-pipe  hat  in 
the  air  (Indian)  or  taking  it  off  (deaf  mute)  ;  a  woman  by  drawing 
the  finger  across  the  forehead,  to  indicate  her  shorter,  or  cut  off 
stature,  or  drawing  it  down  the  side  of  the  face  under  the  chin  to 
suggest  bonnet  strings ;  a  baby  by  dandling  the  other  elbow ;  the 
speechlessness  of  an  infant  and  the  toothlessness  of  an  old  person  by 
the  finger  laid  across  the  mouth  horizontally  or  pressed  into  it ;  the 
sun  by  making  a  round  circle  with  the  thumb  and  forefinger  or  both 
hands ;  money  by  a  smaller  circle  with  one — all  these  are  samples  of 
standard  gestures  indicating  objects.  Colors  may  be  designated  by 
pointing  at  the  lips  for  red,  teeth  for  white,  sky  for  blue,  trees  and 
grass  for  green. 

Another  group  of  gestures  signify  mental  processes,  such  as  the 
effort  to  remember,  indicated  by  tapping  the  forehead ;  forgetfulness 
by  scowling,  turning  the  head,  shaking  the  hand  before  the  face, 
or  striking  the  forehead;  to  think  by  bowing  the  head,  shading  the 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND   PANTOMIME  79 

eyes  with  the  hand;  mental  by  the  act  of  manual  prehension  and 
apperception,  or  knowing  that  we  know  by  clasping  one  closed  hand 
with  the  other;  wisdom  or  thinking  by  laying  the  forefinger  on  or 
beside  the  nose  and,  conversely,  folly  is  sometimes  indicated  by  pla- 
cing the  little  finger  there;  Hghtness  by  laying  the  two  forefingers 
together;  silence  or  attend  by  holding  up  the  forefinger  and  fixa- 
ting; surprise  and  incredulity  by  elevating  the  brows,  protruding  the 
lips,  and  sucking  in  the  breath  audibly;  none  or  nothing  by  throw- 
ing both  hands  out ;  number  by  counting  the  fingers ;  many  or  accu- 
mulation by  clawing  or  grasping  together  with  both  hands. 

Very  many  moral  acts  and  qualities  can  be  designated  by  gesture, 
such  as  lying,  by  thrusting  a  curved  forefinger  obliquely  from  the 
mouth  for  "  speaking  crooked  " ;  a  truth  by  a  straight  out  movement ; 
lying  is  also  designated  by  the  two  little  fingers  hooked  and  the 
others  crooked  and  sprinted  apart;  baldness  and  rejection  by  throw- 
ing a  closed  hand  down,  out,  and  opening  the  fingers ;  contempt  or 
indifiference  by  snapping  the  fingers;  theft  by  the  hand  half  shut, 
fingers  apart,  about  to  grasp  furtively ;  miserliness  by  rubbing  the 
thumb  and  forefinger;  coquettishness  by  placing  the  forefinger 
against  the  head,  inclined  to  the  side;  justice  by  holding  scales;  con- 
scious beauty  by  the  thumb  and  finger  each  side  the  outer  corners 
of  the  mouth  and  looking  pretty ;  ugliness  the  same,  with  face  awry ; 
friendship  by  locking  the  two  forefingers  or  all  the  fingers ;  strength 
by  clenching  the  fist  and  clutching  the  biceps  and  perhaps  a  violent 
downward  throwing  movement;  too  bad,  or  mild  reproach,  by  pla- 
cing the  upper  lip  over  the  lower  lip  perhaps  after  a  dental  lingual 
smack;  don't  know  or  care  by  a  shrug,  as  if  to  throw  the  matter  off 
one's  shoulders ;  conscious  pride  by  a  swaggering  gait,  with  arms 
akimbo  in  a  woman  or  hands  in  the  pockets  or  behind  the  back  in 
a  man;  drunkenness  with  reeling,  and  perhaps  hiccoughing  after  a 
drinking  gesture ;  despicableness  by  sneering  and  turning  up  the 
nose.  Indecent  gestures  are  legion  in  number.  Perhaps  in  this 
category  also  belong  much  of  the  motivation  which  impels  children 
to  make  faces  at  others. 

One  class  of  gestures  are  vulgar  and  analogous  to  slang.  Such 
arc  those  of  kicking  one's  self  for  remorse  or  regret;  incredulity  by 
pulling  at  the  collar  or  neckgear,  suggesting  something  too  big  to 
swallow;  by  pulling  down  the  lower  eyelid  to  suggest  that  the  eyes 
are  open  or  that  there  is  nothing  green  there;  craziness  by  whirling 
the  open  finger  or  even  the  hand  about  the  head,  suggesting  wheels; 
intrusive  confidence  by  winking  with  one  eye;  trying  to  laugh  at  a 
poor  joke  by  tickling  one's  self;  effort  by  wiping  the  forehead  with 
the  hand  or  thumb,  with  a  motion  of  flipping  gouts  of  sweat  upon 
the  ground;  decapitation  by  drawing  the  finger  across  the  throat 
with  a  guttural  k-h  of  spurting  blood.  Perhaps  here,  too,  belong 
touching  one's  own  head,  shaking  it,  and  pointing  to  another  to  sug- 
gest daftness,  and  yawning  by  opening  the  flattened  hands  at  the 
wrist,  which  sometimes  causes  it  in  others  by  suggestion. 


8o  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

Mien,  mimesis,  gesture,  and  pantomime,  can  together  express 
every  one  of  the  feehngs  and  emotions  more  graphically  and  for- 
cibly than  words  can  do.  Roscius,  who  could  express  a  content  in 
most  ways,  if  that  content  were  in  the  sphere  of  sentiment,  might 
well  have  won  over  Cicero  in  the  reputed  contest.  Strictly  speaking, 
the  inflections  and  stress  that  accompany  speech  are  emotive  ges- 
tures that  enforce  and  illustrate  the  meaning  of  words,  and  vocaliza- 
tion, out  of  which  language  sprung,  was  itself  first  merely  almost 
an  incidental  and  accidental  accompaniment  of  gesture.  Emotional 
gestures,  it  is  said,  are  less  differentiated  than  intellectual  ones,  but 
this  is  because  feeling  is  itself  a  more  generalized  form  of  mentation, 
and  the  same  also  is  true  of  the  terms  used  for  feelings  which  are 
very  inadequate  and  not  sharply  discriminated.  Without  gesture  in 
the  largest  sense,  we  should  know  little  or  nothing  about  the  feel- 
ings, and  in  its  impending  work  of  penetrating  the  field  of  emo- 
tional life  psychology  will  find  one  of  its  new  highways  to  this  goal 
when  opened  up  to  lie  through  the  interpretation  of  natural  gestures. 

When  we  turn  to  the  volitional  life,  we  find,  again,  that  gestures 
can  be  more  contentful  than  words,  and  can  reproduce  nearly  every 
typical  act  and  occupation  of  the  human  life  with  great  fidelity  to 
copy  and  with  little  miscarriage  in  communication.  Such  holo- 
phrastic  motor  talk  is,  to  be  sure,  vastly  harder  than  merely  oral 
speech,  the  economy  or  laziness  of  which  tends  to  depletion  of  con- 
tent. Dramatic  reproduction  may  be  very  hard  work.  Our  muscles 
are  not  taut  enough  to  talk  with  the  eloquence  of  action  of  our 
palaeolithic  forebears,  and  so  our  mode  of  expression  is  attenuated, 
and  mentation  is  "  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought  "  till 
its  reality  often  seems  wan  and  spectral.  In  recounting  to  others 
and  perhaps  even,  in  recalling  to  themselves,  rnen  were  once  redoers 
of  deeds.  They  did  not  hawk,  trill,  whisper,  sibilate  to  the  secret 
ear,  which  they  could  do  in  darkness,  but  reenacted  all  to  the  eye  in 
the  open  light  of  day.  They  used  no  merely  lingual  or  dactylic 
tongue,  but  their  ideographs  were  formed  more  with  the  funda- 
mental than  the  accessory  muscles.  This  mode  of  communication  has 
nothing  esoteric,  is  not  limited  to  a  single  tribe  or  circle  that  knows 
but  one  tongue  and  so  needs  no  hermeneutics,  but  would  be  intelli- 
gible to  the  polyglot  world,  for  there  is  no  divorce  between  words 
and  things,  no  nominalism  but  only  dynamic  realism  in  thought  and 
life.  No  form  of  converse  is  so  anschaulich,  so  compelling  of  atten- 
tion and  sympathy  and  withal  so  exhilarating  to  both  orator  and 
audience,  and  for  this  reason  this  pristine  mode  of  imparting  mental 
states  passed  naturally  and  inevitably  into  the  primitive  dances  which 
set  forth  in  idealistic  form  not  only  every  emotion  with  profuse 
stage  setting,  but  every  typical  phase  of  human  activity,  domestic, 
social,  vocational,  religious,  and  all  the  rest,  and  these  have  been 
invested  with  such  charm  that  they  have  very  often  survived  the 
last  vestige  of  their  original  meaning. 

One  class  of  gestures  is  immediately  connected  with  the  senses, 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND   PANTOMIME  8i 

each  of  which  has  its  own  group.  For  the  tactile  sense,  there  is 
stroking,  patting,  and  the  comic  gesture  of  touching  with  the  finger 
tip  indicating  touchiness,  mimetic  tickhng,  etc.  A  bad  smell  is  indi- 
cated by  constricting  the  nostrils  or  holding  the  breath,  perhaps 
pointing  to  the  sources  of  the  bad  odor,  a  common  form  of  insult 
among  children.  A  sneer  is  in  part  evolved  from  this  latter  indica- 
tion of  malodorousness  and  of  repulsive  flavors,  while  agreeable 
perfume  or  olfactory  testing  is  expressed  by  sniffing.  Good  taste  is 
indicated  by  smacking  the  lips  and  bad  by  opening  the  mouth,  pro- 
truding the  tongue  and  drawing  up  the  lips,  perhaps  with  incipient 
gagging  and  the  mimesis  of  nausea,  perhaps  of  vomiting.  Hunger  is 
expressed  by  hollow  cheeks  and  pointing  to  the  slightly  opened  mouth, 
and  eating  and  drinking  may  be  elaborately  mimicked,  satiety  being 
indicated  by  rubbing  or  patting  the  stomach  and  starvation  by  press- 
ing it  in.  Closing  the  ears  with  the  fingers  suggests  loud  or  dis- 
agreeable sounds,  and  holding  the  hand  to  the  ear  means  a  faint 
sound,  listen  or  speak  louder,  as  indeed  does  even  turning  the  head 
or  leaning  forward  to  bring  the  preferred  ear  nearer  the  sources  of 
acoustic  stimulation.  Scowling  and  fixating,  real  or  imaginary,  by 
shading  the  eyes  with  the  hand,  holding  up  one  hand  to  each  eye 
as  if  the  former  were  the  tubes  of  an  opera  glass,  casting  down  the 
eyes  in  shame  or  modesty,  rolling  them  upward  in  prayer,  closing 
them  with,  perhaps,  nodding  the  head  or  resting  it  inclined  on  one 
side  upon  the  hand  for  sleep,  turning  up  the  eyes,  showing  the  whites 
below  the  iris  for  death,  looking  down  and  obliquely  with  elevated 
and  inclined  head  for  despicableness  or  looking  down  upon,  fierce 
corrugation  of  the  brows  in  anger,  opening  them  widely  in  sur- 
prise and  fright,  fixating  afar  with  eyes  wide  open  as  a  sign  of 
abstraction,  dreamy  revery,  blinking,  rubbing  the  eyes  for  sleepi- 
ness, wildly  rolling  them  for  shock  and  confusion,  etc. — these  indi- 
cate the  wide  range  of  expressiveness  of  which  the  lids  and  brow 
are  capable,  the  eyeball  itself,  the  center  of  all  these  changes,  re- 
maining perhaps  unchanged.  This  class  of  gestures  begins  in  in- 
fancy with  taste  and  later  with  sight  responses  and  evolves  from 
these  foci  in  mouth  and  eye.  Well  on  in  childhood,  at  an  age  ex- 
tremely variable  with  individuals,  these  spontaneous  reactions  may 
become  voluntary,  and  at  about  the  same  time  they  can  be  re- 
pressed. When  consciousness  can  thus  control  them,  they  may  be 
simulated  toward  imaginary  stimuli,  that  is,  sense  gestures  are  sus- 
ceptible of  a  high  degree  of  evolution,  and  may  thus  come  to  ex- 
press perhaps  as  great  a  variety  of  impressional.  moral,  and  intel- 
lectual reactions  to  the  world,  as  all  that  large  class  of  words  them- 
selves, which  etymology  shows  once  expressed  pure  sense  action,  and 
later  became  .symbols  or  metaphors  of  highest  qualities  and  activi- 
ties. We  speak  of  good  or  bad  taste  in  dress  or  art,  bitter  experi- 
ence, sweet  memories,  a  clean  heart,  a  dirty  act,  a  foul  deed,  a 
white  life,  a  bright  example;  we  hear  the  voice  of  conscience,  see 
truth  which  is  the  light  of  the  world,  etc.  Indeed,  science  has  been 
7 


82  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

defined  as  reducing  the  world  and  life  to  expression  in  the  simplest 
terms  of  real  or  possible  sense  experience.  If  this  be  so,  it  follows 
that  just  in  proportion  as  we  think  clearly  and  resolve  the  world 
of  man  to  its  simplest,  easiest,  and  most  basal  terms,  we  tend  to 
restore  at  least  in  faint  degree,  the  primitive  facial  mimesis  which 
attends  the  activity  of  the  different  senses.  This  is  to  make  think- 
ing natural  as  well  as  economic.  In  proportion  as  we  think  in 
mental  images,  we  play  upon  their  complex  efferent  apparatus,  and 
it  is  this  which  gives  content  and  reality  to  our  mental  processes  and 
tends  to  prevent  them  from  becoming  merely  formal  or  verbal. 
Hence  it  makes  for  honesty  and  truth.  In  deaf-mutes,  these  intense 
facial  reactions  are  sometimes  highly  developed,  and  are  important 
factors  in  communication,  while  the  blind  not  only  preserve  the 
facial  expression  of  infancy  connected  with  the  lower  senses,  but 
their  psychic  processes  are  reflected  in  movements  about  the  eyes. 
These  mimetic  reflexes  in  their  faces,  although  most  developed  about 
the  lower  senses,  make  their  thought  more  palpable  and  literally 
add  a  peculiar  natural  force  and  eloquence  to  their  higher  and  most 
abstract  thought  processes.  The  play  of  these  sense  factors  in 
speech  and  thought  give  a  visual  and  emotive  accompaniment  and 
reenforcement,  as  if  these  senses  were  themselves  acting  upon  the 
mental  content  and,  thus  making  thought  process  less  remote  and 
abstract,  in  a  way  that  convention  represses  all  too  soon  in  the 
children  of  civilization,  among  whom  conversation  grows  verbal 
and  desiccated,  because  divorced  from  the  rich  life  of  sense  and 
feeling  out  of  which  the  intellect  arose.  The  conservation  and  de- 
velopment of  this  element  gives  pristine  vitality  and  force  to  dic- 
tion, freshness,  wholesomeness,  and  even  sanity  to  thought,  approxi- 
mates it  to  action  and  feeling,  makes  it  lively  with  pictorial  and 
dramatic  content,  and  prevents  it  from  aridity  which,  for  the  aver- 
age man  and  woman,  is  the  death  of  zest  and  the  shabblonization  of 
experience. 

Facial  movements  and  gestures  reflect  and  express  every  emo- 
tion, every  shade  of  pain  from  acute  physical  to  moral  suffering, 
and  of  pleasure  from  that  of  sense  to  religious  transport.  Thus 
these  all  are  uttered  and  understood  by  intimate  acquaintances  with- 
out wofds.  Although  these  algedonic  states  can  both  be  simulated 
and  dissimulated,  the  range  of  control  is  limited  in  their  stronger 
spontaneous  expressions  which  may  affect  every  muscle,  voluntary 
and  involuntary,  and  modify  every  physiological  and  metabolic  proc- 
ess. This  all-pervading  somatic  resonance  of  itself  suggests  that 
this  is  the  oldest  and  most  basal  of  psychic  experiences.  Pain,  of 
course,  shows  very  many  shades  and  grades  even  in  early  infancy, 
when  it  culminated  in  the  full,  almost  convulsive  cry,  with  aban- 
don, which  at  its  height  is,  perhaps,  relatively  to  the  total  motive 
energy,  the  most  intense  degree  of  exercise  the  human  individual 
ever  puts  forth,  extending  to  every  organic  function.  Laughing  be- 
gins much  later  in  an  awkward  way,  and  is  at  first  far  less  em- 


VALUE   OF   DANCING   AND   PANTOMIME  83 

phatic,  and,  even  in  riper  years,  is  far  more  under  the  control  of 
the  will.  In  its  intenser  forms,  its  facial  and  general  motor  effects 
more  closely  resemble  those  of  crying  with  tears.  Both  may  cause 
local  aches,  and,  when  beyond  control,  each  may  pass  into  the  other, 
as  is  seen  in  hysteria.  This,  however,  is  only  when  and  because 
their  degree  is  convulsive.  Within  normal  limits,  the  two  are  es- 
sentially distinguished  and  contrasted  in  their  physical  expression 
and  in  their  subjective  state.  In  infancy,  however,  the  feeling  is 
the  expression,  and  there  is  no  causal  or  temporal  sequence  between 
the  two,  but  only  the  relation  of  identity.  Even  the  slighter  shades 
of  sadness  and  happiness  consist  in  the  reproduction  of  the  physio- 
logical processes  which  in  our  ancestry,  human  and  prehuman,  were 
depressive  or  exhilarating,  i.  e.,  repressed  or  augmented  life.  The 
evolutionary  formula  for  violent  crying  is  pain  and  devitalization 
seeking  relief  by  learning,  as  animal  life  can  do,  to  draw  upon 
kinetic  reserves.  There  is  no  psychic  state,  save  the  feeling  of  the 
act  of  crying,  its  kind  and  its  intensity.  The  movements  themselves 
are  the  felted  ontogenetic  traces  of  rudiments  of  all  the  efforts  the 
phylum  has  made  to  escape  or  resist  pain,  and  these  movements 
bring  with  them  more  or  less  of  the  ancestral  pain,  for  motor  cells 
and  contracting  tissue  are  the  bearers  of  such  hereditary  functions. 
Deaf-mutes  naturally  become  adepts  in  the  use  of  this  mother 
tongue  of  the  race,  and  their  gestures  and  those  of  savages  are  only 
dialects  of  the  same  primeval  language.  Both  are  surprisingly  quick 
to  catch  salient  points  of  strangers,  and  such  new  objects  as  glasses, 
long  hair,  mustaches,  firearms,  keys,  tools,  and  things,  are  some- 
times described  at  first  with  very  elaborate  gesticulation,  air-drawing, 
etc.,  and  when  once  understood  a  single  characteristic  movement  or 
posture  is  selected  from  a  complex  whole  and  suffices.  Many 
spontaneous  gestures  ^  may  fairly  be  called  universal,  but  upon  them 
are  now  superposed  more  or  less  arbitrary  symbols,  such  as  touch- 
ing a  part  of  the  hand  or  the  body  for  each  letter,  then  dactylology, 
and  last  of  all,  articulation,  taught  at  first  by  manipulating  the 
mouth.  These  latter  tend  to  repress  gesture,  which  is  indeed  often 
forbidden,  somewhat  as  the  speech  of  adults  still  earlier  in  life 
checks  the  spontaneous  evolution  of  speech  in  normal  infants.  By 
these  movements,  the  language  of  the  deaf  loses  its  generic  funda- 
mental character  and  becomes  specific,  alphabetic,  and  even  phonic 
and  thus  much  is  lost  and  much  gained.  It  is  an  inestimable  advan- 
tage to  speak,  and  parents  prefer  this  method  because  it  rescues  their 
children  from  isolation  and  tends  to  make  both  almost  forget  the 
infirmity.  Yet  most  deaf-mute  children,  when  they  first  come  to 
an  institution  where  instruction  is  given,  have  already  learned  many 
gestures  of  much   grace   and   even  beauty.     To   penalize  them    for 

'  Hartmann,  Arthur:  Taubstummheit  und  Taubstummcnbildung.  StuUgart, 
1880,  212  p.,  chap,  xii  on  Gestures.  See  also  J.  H.  Keep:  Sign  Language  in  Deaf- 
Mute  Education.     New  England,  vol.  xxvi,  506  p. 


84  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

using  these  condemns  the  child  to  solitude  during  all  those  gre- 
garious years  required  to  learn  articulation.  Moreover,  their  voices 
are  always  hard  and  disagreeable  and  the  children  soon  come  to 
know  it  and,  hence,  often  dislike  to  speak  and  perhaps  cease  to  do 
so  after  leaving  school.  Training  in  speech  is  very  hard  for  the 
voice  and  there  is  often  great  pain,  while  its  quality  deteriorates, 
for  the  speech  is  not  natural,  but  is  like  walking  with  a  partially 
atrophied  leg.  The  use  of  signs  to  translate  the  meaning  of  words 
makes  phonic  instruction  more  rapid  and  contentful  and  shows  what 
is  and  is  not  understood.  Signs  are  so  full,  however,  of  power  and 
life  that  they  do  strongly  tend  to  encroach  upon  more  artificial  and 
later  methods.  Slovenly  modes  of  speech,  like  the  Yankee  dialect, 
are  easier  for  deaf-mutes,  as  indeed  they  are  for  others,  than  is 
correctly  spoken  English,  and  clergymen  who  drop  the  use  of  manu- 
script and  preach  more  naturally  without  notes  often  recover  by 
so  doing  from  clerical  sore  throat,  but  speech  for  deaf-mutes  mag- 
nifies both  these  difficulties,  for  it  is  far  harder  than  good  English 
for  the  normal  person  or  unanimated  reading  for  the  clergyman.  It 
is,  therefore,  as  cruel  to  forbid  signs  as  it  would  be  to  forbid  English 
on  the  street  to  beginners  in  Latin.  It  is  also  unpedagogic,  for 
signs  give  vitality  to  speech  that  nothing  else  can  supply.  Hence, 
signs,  finger-language  and  speech  should  be  combined. 

We  are  told  that  in  190  a.d.  the  6,000  pantomimists  in  Rome 
were  retained  in  the  city  in  a  famine  when  strangers  and  philoso- 
phers were  banished,  so  highly  were  these  dumb  actors  prized. 
They  were  interpreters  with  people  of  unknown  tongue  and  at- 
tended armies  on  their  conquests  and  there  were  at  least  two 
schools:  one  dignified  and  serious  and  the  other  sportive  and  often 
indecent;  and  so  expert  were  they  that  the  lives  of  great  men  were 
told  by  signs.  Probably  only  deaf-mutes  under  favorable  conditions 
can  nearly  approach  this  perfection,  or  could  in  the  days  when 
Abbe  Lambert  published  his  dictionaries  of  signs,  but  these  had 
been  repressed  in  the  interests  of  articulation  and  lip-reading. 
Many  of  the  simplest  of  these  are  tropes,  especially  metaphors 
which  called  the  hero  a  lion,  or  metonomy  which  puts  e.  g.  the 
sword  for  war,  the  concrete  for  the  abstract,  or  synecdoche,  which 
puts  the  roof  for  the  house,  the  beard  for  the  man,  etc.  Height  is 
expressed  by  raising  the  hand  or  looking  up;  depth  by  the  reverse; 
intelligence  by  tapping  the  forehead  and  looking  wise ;  deafness 
by  stopping  the  ears;  blindness  by  laying  the  finger  on  the  closed 
eye;  the  future  by  a  wave  of  the  hand  in  front  and  past  time  by 
a  backward  movement;  long  by  drawing  out  as  if  ^a  string  from 
the  other  hand;  stififness  by  rigidity  of  body;  dreams  by  a  sleeping 
gesture  and  moving  the  fingers  wildly  before  the  closed  eyes ;  a 
mirror  is  indicated  by  standing  before  it  and  making  a  toilet;  a 
chair  by  the  gesture  of  sitting  in  it ;  sand  by  letting  it  sift  through 
the  fingers ;  a  fly  by  a  movement  of  catching  it ;  boots  by  putting 
them  on;  lightning  by  zigzag  with  the  finger;  old  age  by  its  pos- 


VALUE   OF   DANCING  AND   PANTOMIME  85 

ture  and  gait;  thunder  by  collapse  of  flexed  joints;  Jesus  by  point- 
ing to  imaginary  wounds  in  hands  and  feet ;  a  doctor  by  feeling  the 
pulse ;  etc.  Most  such  signs  are  ideographic  movements  which 
all  understand  much  more  readily  than  they  do  the  sometimes  pain- 
fully artificial  hollow  cachophonous  words  which  the  German  method 
produces,  repressing  both  gestures  and  spontaneous  noises  as  "  in- 
human." ^  They  are  quite  as  designative  as  onomatppoesis  is  for 
sounds  in  nature  and  indeed  are  compared  with  it. 

Compound  signs  follow  the  same  rubrics  of  origin,  mode  of  use, 
form,  effect  for  cause,  and  vice  versa,  general  indication  with 
specific  marks,  etc.  For  rich  and  poor  there  is  first  the  sign  for 
man  and  then  the  specific  sign  of  the  condition  or  the  kind  of  man 
may  be  further  designated,  as  little,  dark,  crooked,  hungry,  etc. 
To  state  that  he  is  a  father,  the  elbow  is  thrust  forward  from  the 
right  side  as  a  sign  of  generation,  with  the  reverse  movement  for 
mother.  A  boy  is  a  man  plus  the  sign  for  short  stature,  and  for  a 
girl,  the  sign  of  a  headdress  or  long  hair  is  added;  assassin  is  in- 
dicated by  the  sign  of  stabbing  with  the  thumb;  a  goose  is  a  bird 
with  a  bill  sig^  made  with  thumb  and  finger;  a  red  rose  is  flower 
plus  the  act  of  smelling  and  perhaps  thorns  and  touching  the  lips 
for  red;  snow  is  white,  falling  obliquely  or  of  snowballing;  boat  is 
tracing  its  form  plus  the  act  of  rowing;  a  calf  is  a  quadruped  with 
the  sign  for  little  and  the  gesture  of  sucking;  a  caterpillar  is  a 
worm  with  pointing  to  the  hair  and  the  gesture  of  gnawing  leaves; 
a  tablecloth  is  the  act  of  spreading  or  smoothing  it ;  a  bee  is  desig- 
nated by  the  mimesis  of  stinging  and  of  the  hand  swelling;  a  dog 
is  indicated  by  patting  the  knee  and  imitation  of  its  bark;  hare  is 
long  ears,  shooting,  and  eating  with  pleasure ;  apron,  cravat,  stock- 
ing, glove,  by  the  act  of  putting  them  on ;  pump,  swing,  door,  cradle, 
watch,  etc.,  by  the  act  of  using  them. 

The  sign  language  knows  neither  noun,  verb,  article  nor  pro- 
noun and  its  syntax  is  radically  different  from  that  of  oral  speech, 
but  the  deaf-mute  can  represent  the  temporal  sequence  and  in  that 
he  has  the  advantage  of  the  artist.  He  can  also  abstract,  localize, 
and  accomplish  much  by  assignment.  He  deals  with  roots  and  is 
greatly  helped  by  trained  teachers  who  are  also  deaf-mutes.  Com- 
plex signs  admit  of  and  soon  attain  great  development.  Methodic 
and  artificial  signs  are  diverse,  somewhat  like,  though  less  than, 
dialects  or  even  languages  sprung  from  one  parent  stem,  and  yet 
most  diverse  signs  for  the  same  object  are  easily  understood  by 
those  accustomed  to  others.  As  accompaniments  of  words  they  have 
great  explanatory  power  for  normal  persons,  but  arc  far  more 
helpful  in  aiding  the  intelligibility  of  the  somewhat  ghastly  vocaliza- 
tion of   even   the   most   expert  articulators  among   the   deaf.     The 

'  See  Hcame's  admirable  articles  describing  many  of  these  natural  signs  in  the 
American  Annals  of  the  Deaf,  beginning  April,  1875,  vol.  x.t,  73  p.,  and  continued 
in  four  articles. 


86  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

teacher  always  has  very  much  to  learn  from  the  pupil.  The  fact 
that  many  of  the  de  I'Epee  signs  are  highly  artificial  should  not 
prejudice  the  cause  of  natural  signs. 

Rudolph/  taking  his  departure  from  facial  expression,  finds  six 
primitive  forms  of  psychic  excitation :  viz.,  fear,  concentrated  en- 
ergy, repulsion  and  disgust,  impulse  to  bite,  eat*  and  get,  joy, 
malevolence,  and  hate.  Beneath  these  lies  only  the  principle  of 
opposition,  i.  e.,  attraction  toward  the  pleasant  and  aversion  from 
the  painful.  From  these  he  derives  all  the  nine  hundred  and  seven 
species  and  varieties  of  emotional  expression  depicted  in  his  cuts, 
all  presumably  of  his  own  very  plastic  face.  This  involves  a 
very  complex  scheme  of  emotions  which  the  author  makes  little 
attempt  to  justify  or  explain  in  detail.  Indeed,  it  is  impossible 
to  evoke  emotions  of  a  very  pure  or  strong  kind  at  will,  and  very 
many,  if  not  most,  of  these  grimaces  are  so  conscious  and  ar- 
bitrary that  they  are  not  readily  intelligible  and  the  significance 
given  them  by  different  writers  would  differ  greatly.  Even  if  the 
feelings  were  evokable  by  an  experienced  and  skillful  actor  or 
pantomimist,  no  face  is  plastic  enough  to  express  them  all,  and 
each  cast  of  countenance  as  well  as  each  innate  type  of  psychic 
disposition  predisposes  to  excellence  in  some  and  efficiency  in  other 
forms  of  expression.  This  writer's  face,  e.  g.,  is  heavy  and  serious 
and  his  efforts  at  hilarity  in  all  its  forms  are  but  little  contagious 
and  are  hence  lacking  in  interpretative  efficiency.  The  face  of  these 
cuts  is  somewhat  too  old  and  rigid  and  not  a  few  of  the  expres- 
sions are  not  pronounced  enough.  This  defect  is  obtrusive,  despite 
the  fact  that  most  of  the  physiognomies  have  been  much  retouched 
and  given  accessories  in  the  way  of  modifications  of  the  hair,  beard, 
dress,  and  interpretative  hand  gestures.  Conventionalities,  such  as  the 
influence  of  certain  well-known  crucifixion  faces,  the  Laocoon,  etc., 
are  manifest.  In  thirty-six  general  classes  of  expression  are  included 
facial  gestures  of  each  sense  in  action  and  in  defect,  as  well  as 
blowing,  yawning,  sneezing,  etc.  The  Lange-James  theory  that  the 
feeling  is  the  physical  expression  may  encourage  writers  of  this  kid- 
ney to  make  faces  and  then  put  a  name  to  the  feelings  they  think 
they  express,  but  aside  from  a  dozen  or  so  fundamental  emotions, 
such  interpretations  are  as  diverse  as  are  the  attempts  to  describe 
the  sentiments  and  imagery  of  musical  phrases.  I  have  shown  these 
and  other  similar  cuts  to  children  of  various  ages  and  find  that 
lively  girls  in  the  early  teens  very  quickly  and  readily  reproduce 
almost  every  facial  expression,  and  some  are  extremely  clever  in 
describing,  often  in  very  original  phrases,  the  psychic  states  repre- 
sented. Whether  they  are  innately  less  expert  in  making  faces  than 
boys  or  merely  more  reluctant  to  distort  their  features,  they  cer- 
tainly see  more  meaning  in  facial  expression  thus  depicted  than  do 

*  Rudolph,  H. :  Der  Ausdruck  der  Gemiitsbewegungen  des  Menschen.  Kiiht- 
mann,  Dresden,  1903,  2  vols. 


VALUE    OF    DANCING    AND    PANTOMIME  87 

boys.  Yet  the  faces  of  girls  unconsciously  or  instinctively  reflect 
finer  shades  of  emotion  than  do  those  of  boys.  In  all  such  de- 
pictures the  potent  defects  of  movement  and  of  changes  of  color 
are  of  course  eliminated.  This  author  refers  to  no  authorities 
whatever  save  Darwin  and  does  not  discuss  the  perhaps  most  prac- 
ticable of  all  questions  in  his  field,  viz.,  whether  facial  contortions 
of  the  kind  he  commends  increase  or  reduce  plasticity  of  the  coun- 
tenance in  its  unconscious  play.  We  believe  it  can  no  longer  be 
doubted  that  most  faces  are  less  expressive  than  they  could  be  if  the 
natural  expression  of  emotion  were  not  checked,  and  that  some  such 
mimetic  gymnastics  should  betimes  be  a  part  of  the  aesthetic  educa- 
tion of  all,  not  only  to  prevent  rigidity  of  features  but  to  widen  the 
gamut  of  emotional  life.  Experiments  in  having  children  and  youth 
make  faces  in  imitation  of  a  well-chosen  series  of  cuts  and  then  de- 
scribe what  they  express  are  greatly  needed.  The  old  admonition 
against  face-making  should  thus  give  place  to  exercises  of  this 
faculty  and  these  will  no  doubt  soon  be  curriculized. 

Hughes's  work  ^  is  the  most  belabored  of  all  the  recent  books 
upon  the  subject  and  shows  wide  reading  and  much  thought.  It  is 
written  from  the  standpoint  of  a  voluntaristic  psychology,  for  he 
says  ours  is  an  age  of  will  and  deeds.  He  strives  to  be  in  a 
sense  genetic  and  his  interest  centers  about  the  question  how  nat- 
ural, instinctive  movements  are  transformed  into  symbolic  expres- 
sions. He  makes  four  chief  kinds  of  emotional  feelings,  viz.:  (i) 
mood  (Stimmung),  including  jollity,  joy,  complacency,  abandon,  bad 
humor,  ugliness,  despair;  (2)  attention,  ranging  from  liveliness  and 
energy  to  wildness,  rage,  relaxation,  exhaustion  and  unconscious- 
ness; (3)  inclination,  from  love  and  benevolence  to  aversion  and 
hate;  and  (4)  respect,  from  reverence  and  honesty  to  modesty, 
shame,  fear,  and  contempt,  and  he  makes  much  use  of  opposition, 
laying  off  feelings  along  a  plus  and  minus  line  each  side  of  an  in- 
different point,  those  of  desire,  its  highest  positive  form  of  striving 
toward,  shades  through  inclination  to  indifference,  then  rises  nega- 
tively through  aversion  to  resistance,  the  latter  representing  the 
negative  pole  of  displeasure  and  the  first  the  positive  one  of  pleas- 
ure. So  the  rapture  of  enjoyment  shades  down  through  rest,  which 
is  neutral,  to  pain,  the  highest  evaluation  through  indifference  to 
contempt,  genuineness  into  falsity.  Many  of  his  characterizations 
are  graphic,  but  there  is  the  tendency  that  besets  most  literature 
upon  this  subject  to  overnormalization,  the  analyses  are  too  refined 
and  the  rubrics  more  or  less  speculative  and  systemization  is  over- 
done. Although  his  work  is  chiefly  devoted  to  conscious  and  pur- 
posive gesture,  the  phenomena  of  natural  expressions  are  the  key 
to  nearly  all  his  problems,  so  that  in  passing  these  over  so  lightly 
one's  verdict  upon  the  validity  of  his  conclusions  often  hovers  in  the 

'  Hughes,  Henry:  Die  Mimik  dcs  Mcnschen.  Alt,  Frankfurt  a.  M.,  1900, 
423  p. 


88  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

air.  The  style  is  often  prolix  and  even  tedious.  The  author  pro- 
fesses to  be  genetic,  but  his  interpretation  of  this  word  will  prove 
misleading  to  all  interested  in  evolutionary  origins.  Hence  the 
work  is  not  sufficiently  concrete  or  empirical,  but  hovers  somewhat 
in  the  air.  The  descriptions  are  often  excellent,  such  as  those  of 
desire,  uncertainty,  searching,  triumph,  the  food  quest,  jollity, 
sycophancy,  etc. 

The  most  elaborate  and  systematic  work  on  the  basis  of  Del- 
sarte,  who  published  nothing,  is  that  of  Giraudet,*  who  would  have 
people  dance  and  sing  with  the  same  freedom  with  which  they  walk 
and  speak  respectively  and  who  pleads  for  a  new  sestheticism  as  an 
"  emanation  of  the  soul."  He  lays  less  stress  upon  the  Delsartian 
symbolic  philosophy  than  did  Abbe  Delaumosne  -  and  is  more  prac- 
tical than  Arnaud.^  Life  is  action  and  this  is  expressed  in  man 
in  seven  hundred  and  twenty-nine  kinds  of  dynamic  phenomena 
grouped  in  a  trinitarian  way  and  all  classified  as  either  constitutional, 
habitual,  or  fugitive.  His  cuts  of  passional  attitudes  and  expressions 
of  eyebrows,  nose,  mouth,  head  postures,  shoulders,  arms  and  hands, 
trunk,  legs  and  feet  are  mostly  characteristic  and  distinctive  and 
have  contributed  much  to  revive  Delsartian  studies  for  the  stage  in 
France  where  they  had  sadly  declined. 

Will  interferes  with  the  purest  manifestation  of  expressive 
gesture,  says  Kohnstamm,*  which  is  at  bottom  involuntary  utter- 
ance of  feeling.  As  its  purest  indicator,  such  expressive  moments 
have  immense  importance  as  revealers  of  associations  of  our  entire 
psycho-physic  apparatus.  They  are  the  physiological  equivalents  of 
the  feelings  and  begin  perhaps  among  the  very  first  expressions  of 
life.  The  telo-kinetic  end  is  a  relief.  Their  purposefulness  is  great, 
but  without  consciousness.  One  principle  underlies  the  visceral  or 
smooth  and  also  the  voluntary  or  striate  muscles.  As  anger  checks 
sensations  of  the  secretions  of  the  fluids  of  the  stomach,  so  hypno- 
tism may  influence  menstruation  and  possibly  ovulation. 

Albert  Boree  ^  makes  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  material  for 
a  theory  of  physiognomy.  He  has  for  many  years  been  connected 
with  the  theater,  and  attempts  here  to  assume  for  the  benefit  of 
actors  and  painters  and  sculptors  ten  groups  of  facial  expression 
for  the  various  sentiments.  It  is  indeed  a  brief  dictionary  of  the 
characteristic  expressions  of  the  various  emotions.     All  are  photo- 

'  Giraudet,  Alfred:  Mimique.     Physionomie  et  Gestes.     Paris,  1895,  128  p. 

^  The  Delsarte  System  of  Oratory.  Tr.  by  F.  A.  Shaw.  Werner,  Albany,  1887, 
546  p. 

^  F.  Delsarte :  Ses  decouvertes,  en  esthetique,  sa  science,  sa  methode,  precidi 
de  details  de  sa  vie.     1882,  258  p. 

*  Kohnstamm,  O.:  Die  biologische  Sonderstcllung  der  Ausdrucksbewegungen. 
Jour.  f.  Psychologic  und  Neurologic.     1906,  Band  7,  p.  205-222. 

'  Etudes  Physiognomoniques.  Les  Expressions  de  la  Figure  Humaine.  Laurens, 
Paris,  30  p. 


VALUE    OF    DANCING    AND    PANTOMIME  89 

graphed  from  a  single  face  and  in  all  there  are  one  hundred  and 
nineteen  of  them. 


As  thus  interpreted,  is  it  not  plain  that  the  new  dancing 
should  be  taught  in  every  school,  even  if  it  has  to  be  open  even- 
ings for  that  purpose?  The  dances  chosen  should  be  simple, 
rhythmic,  and  allowing  great  freedom.  We  should  select  from 
the  best  of  all  nations  those  most  fit  for  each  age,  and  cur- 
ricularize  them  to  cultivate  a  sense  of  rhythm,  ease,  economy, 
and  grace  of  movement.  There  should  be  great  variety,  and 
pose,  balance,  control,  ease,  presence;  bearing  should  be  the 
goal  rather  than  posturing  or  feats  of  agility.  Rightly  con- 
ducted, some  of  these  old  dances  might  be  made  the  very  best 
basis  on  which  the  sexes  in  the  adolescent  ages  could  meet. 
They  palliate  instead  of  increase  the  sense  of  awkwardness, 
and  are  just  formal  enough  to  give  a  certain  regimentation  to 
this  intercourse,  and  they  place  the  two  sexes  on  an  exact 
equality.  They  give  also  a  sense  of  social  solidarity.  While 
aiming  to  bring  out  all  the  delight  that  inheres  in  such  cadent 
movement  to  music,  in  themselves  they  should  also  aim  to  give 
pleasure  to  the  beholder.  Indeed,  this  latter  element  should 
never  be  absent.  I  know  at  least  one  young  person  who  takes 
the  greatest  delight  in  choosing  a  musical  selection  and  then 
working  out  with  great  ingenuity,  phrase  by  phrase,  with  more 
changes  than  a  poet  makes  in  his  lines,  the  suitable  steps, 
pauses,  turns,  advances,  recessions,  bar  by  bar.  until  at  last 
the  music  is  set  to  a  motor  poem  which  fits  it  and  nothing  else. 
I  have  been  surprised  to  see  the  great  ingenuity  displayed  in 
this  work,  the  sure  rewards  of  patient  and  persistent  effort, 
the  extraordinary  delight  in  repeating  such  a  dance  wlien  per- 
fect, and  have  myself  felt  an  exquisite  pleasure  in  seeing  it. 
Only  by  beginning  with  the  school  and  cultivating  a  taste  for 
better  things  and  the  ability  to  achieve  them  can  the  ballroom 
be  reformed,  and  the  evils  that  have  gnthered  about  this  most 
artistic  of  all  the  forms  of  movement  be  eliminated. 

Another  end  to  Ije  aimed  at  in  teaching  all  children  to 
dance  should  be  the  implanting  of  a  habit  of  so  doing  that 
should  last  on  into  maturity,  not  to  say  old  ago.  In  Merry 
Old  England,  and  in  the  palmy  days  of  the  great  French 
dances,  matrons  with  gray  hair  went  through  the  minuet  and 


90  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

pavane  with  their  grandfathers.  Young  people  of  high- 
school  age,  especially  girls  who  show  the  least  sign  of  talent 
or  genius  in  this  field  (for  the  domain  gives  the  amplest  scope 
for  both),  should  be  encouraged  to  elaborate  original  develop- 
ments upon  musical  themes  or  to  dance  out  songs. 

There  is  probably  nothing  in  the  hedonic  narcosis  that 
sestheticians  describe  on  beholding  a  masterpiece  of  art  that 
may  not  be  felt  in  seeing  a  terpsichorean  performance  of  the 
highest  merit.  A  German  writer  has  entitled  an  article 
"  Dancing  as  the  Chief  Joy  and  the  Highest  Expression  of 
Life."  When  we  reflect  on  all  the  historical  varieties  of  de- 
scriptive dances — on  its  hygienic,  euphoric,  social,  moral  pos- 
sibilities— we  may  well  ask  the  church  whether  it  is  not  high 
time  that  it  should  cease  to  pour  out  the  child  with  the  bath, 
especially  when  we  realize  that  the  religious  instinct  would 
have  been  far  feebler  than  it  is  to-day  but  for  the  development 
that  the  dance  has  given  it,  and  that  it  can  still  teach  reverence, 
awe,  worship — that  love  of  God  is  just  as  capable  of  motor 
expression  as  is  romantic  love.  Many  young  clergymen  and 
progressive  churches  are  already  beginning  to  bestir  and  in- 
form themselves,  and  to  realize  that  the  time  is  at  hand  when 
they  must  act  in  this  matter.^ 

*  See  Dictionnaire  de  la  Danse,  per  G.  Desrat.  Paris,  May  et  Motteroz,  1895, 
484  p.  Also  Der  Tanz  und  seine  Geschichte,  von  Rudolph  Voss.  Berlin,  See- 
hagen,  1869,  402  p. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE    PEDAGOGY   OF    MUSIC 

Music  and  mysticism — Music  as  an  expression  of  the  primordial  activities 
of  the  soul — Its  relation  to  dancing — Musical  ecstacies  and  haunts — 
Educational  value  of  music — Suggestions  from  the  music  of  savage 
races — Relations  to  poetry  and  mythic  themes — Musical  capacities  of 
very  young  children  and  their  utilization — Experiments  and  tests  upon 
discrimination,  keys,  range  of  voice — Questionnaire  data  upon  musical 
appreciation — Music  and  sex — Synaesthesias — Effects  of  barbaric  music 
— Precocity  and  anamnesia — Singing — Effects  of  weather — Tonic  sol- 
fa — Psychology  of  rhythm — W'ind  instruments  and  the  violin — Place 
of  the  technique — Experiments  on  musical  imagery — Inadequacy  of 
musical  instruction  in  colleges — Pedagogic  value  of  the  pianola  prin- 
ciple— Musical  training  of  teachers — Effects  of  music  upon  nerve 
poise — Teaching  confidence  in  human  nature. 

Thought  and  reason  and  their  vehicle,  speech,  are  all  three  ^ 
of  them  novelties  in  the  natural  development  history  of  the 
soul.  In  the  dim  past,  psychic  life  was  very  different  from 
what  it  is  now ;  feeling,  instinct,  and  impulse  were  all,  and 
they  were  common  to  the  whole  race  and  to  animals,  while 
intellect  not  only  came  late  but  was  largely  an  individual  prod- 
uct, causing  people  to  differ  from  each  other  and  stand  out 
from  the  species.  It  is  of  this  older,  larger,  deeper,  and  more  i 
generic  soul  of  man  that  music  is  the  best  and  truest  of  all 
expressions,  especially  if  with  singing  we  consider  gesture, 
mimesis,  and  dramatic  action  which  arose  with  it.  Music  is 
the  speech  of  this  antique,  half-buried  racial  soul.  It  did  nojt 
evolve  from  love  calls  or  charms  alone,  as  Darwin  thought ; 
nor  did  it  first  api)ear  as  a  tone-colored  accompaniment  to 
speech,  as  Spencer's  broader  theory  taught,  for  it  is  older  than 
language,  as  Weismann,  Boas,  and  Gaultawan  have  shown, 
and  capacity  for  musical  culture  is  latent  in  many  primitive 
races.     Birds,   which  evolved  long  before  man  appeared  on 

91 


92  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

earth,  practiced  this  art,  and  so  did  animals  and  even  insects, 
the  very  first  of  all  creatures  to  emerge  from  the  primeval  sea. 
Indeed,  if  we  stretch  the  term  to  its  very  uttermost  and  make 
music  include  all  acoustic  expressions,  the  wind,  rain,  thunder, 
sea,  are  the  oldest  of  all  musicians,  for  trees  and  brooks  came 
later,  after  the  land  appeared. 

If  we  abandon  ourselves  to  the  very  madness  of  mysticism, 
we  may  say  that  vibrations  and  impacts  are  as  old  as  matter, 
heat,  light,  or  even  atoms  and  electrons.  Probably  all  energy 
is  rhythmic  and  cadenced,  so  that  in  this  sense  the  music  of 
the  spheres  which  Plato  thought  the  sweetest  and  most  sym- 
phonic of  all,  even  though  we  cannot  hear  it,  is  no  longer 
myth  but  science.  To  all  these  influences,  protoplasm,  which 
is  the  sugared-off,  vital  product  of  the  cosmic  elements  and 
processes,  has  responded  from  the  first,  for  it  is  the  material 
soul  of  the  All.  This  pristine  rapport  was  closer  and  more 
all-sided  before  any  special  acoustic  sense  was  developed  for 
it.  Thus,  though  man  has  lost  many  of  the  old  and  subtler 
responses  and  perhaps  has  shed  a  whole  series  of  ascending 
rudimentary  organs  for  them,  the  human  ear  is  the  result  of 
a  longer  development  process,  which  has  made  it  the  highest 
and  the  most  specialized  organ  of  response  to  vibrations.  But 
the  influence  of  all  these  buried  reactions  still  whispers  among 
man's  central  neurons ;  and,  in  his  appreciations  of  pure  music, 
reverberations  are  still  awakened  of  the  immemorial  past  when 
his  personality  was  not  yet  so  sphered  and  specialized  out  of 
the  cosmic  whole.  Thus,  in  music,  man  may  to-day  dimly  re- 
vive the  most  ancient  elements  and  experiences  in  the  history 
of  his  soul.  If  heredity  is  cell  memory,  the  aesthetic  response 
to  music  is  the  awakening  of  echoes  far  older  than  the  earliest 
acoustic  organs ;  and,  in  this  process,  man  remembers  the  ear- 
liest as  well  as  the  subsequent  stages  of  his  evolution.  It  is 
the  art  of  arts  because  most  prehumanistic,  and  also  most 
prophetic  of  the  superman  that  is  to  be. 

It  is  this  aspect  of  this  sovereign  art  that  can  justify,  if 
anything  can  do  so,  the  enthusiastic  characterizations  of  it  by 
writers  like  Mario  Pilo  ^  that  it  utters  the  essence  of  things, 
best  explains  the  world,  is  the  chief  interpreter  of  religion, 

*  Psychologic  der  Music.     Leipzig,  Wigand,  1906,  222  p.     Ed.  by  C.  D.  Pflaxim. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   MUSIC  93 

that  it  propounds  and  answers  the  ultimate  problems  of  life, 
or  gives  at  least  a  mystic  meaning  to  Schopenhauer's  phrases, 
that  it  is  the  last  word  of  the  highest  philosophy,  that  it  is  the 
revealer  of  ultimate  metaphysical  being  of  the  will  and  soul 
and  of  nature  itself.  Only  from  some  such  viewpoint  can  we 
see  light  in  the  utterances  of  German  aestheticians  who  say 
that  music  expresses  all  the  cosmic  emotions,  utters  every 
potential  as  well  as  every  actual  feeling,  that  its  kingdom  is 
not  of  this  present  but  also  of  the  future  world,  and  that  it 
should  be  made  the  very  most  of  because  it  strikes  its  roots 
deepest  into  the  past  and  most  securely  shapes  the  future  so 
that  its  home  is  in  the  infinite,  that  it  shows  everything  under 
the  form  of  eternity,  that  it  utters  all  longings,  even  the  dim- 
mest, puts  us  into  rapport  with  stars,  sea  and  dreams,  and 
draws  the  ideal  down  from  its  fatherland  in  heaven,  if,  indeed, 
it  itself  be  not  the  very  essence  of  God. 

As  the  dance  in  the  sense  described  in  the  last  chapter  is 
the  purest  poetry  of  motion,  bringing  out  all  the  varieties  of 
movement  possible  for  the  body  as  a  mechanism,  and  thereby, 
on  a  theory  that  physical  precedents  condition  psychic  changes, 
evoking  all  the  wide  range  of  psychic  states  that  motor  atti- 
tudes and  combinations  can  suggest,  so  music  is  the  dance  of 
the  emotions.  It  is  more  and  better  than  their  gymnastics,  for 
it  also  suggests  impossible  activities  as  well  as  passive  move- 
ments. It  compels  every  mood  in  the  whole  gamut  of  human 
experience,  brings  tension  which  may  become  almost  rigidity, 
makes  us  feel  that  the  cosmos  is  lawful  to  the  very  core,  and 
that  all  is  preordained  in  the  sweep  of  ordered  and  controlled 
forces,  and  anon  gives  us  a  sense  of  exhilarating  freedom,  as 
if  we  lived  in  a  world  where  nothing  was  impossible  and  our 
powers  were  adequate  to  transcend  every  regulation  and  over- 
come every  obstacle.  We  realize  our  insignificance  and  the 
power  of  fate  and  iron  necessity  which  holds  things  in  its 
bounds,  and  yet  we  feel  that  not  only  all  that  man  has  been 
or  done  in  the  world  we  could  do,  but  vastly  more.  We 
glimpse  the  abysses  of  woe  and  the  shining  pinnr.cles  of  every 
joy.  Music  limbers  each  faculty,  loosens  and  softens  all  that , 
is  hard  in  the  soul,  stretches  out  every  faculty  to  its  fullest  \ 
dimension.  Potentialities  that  slumber  through  all  the  rest  of 
our  lives  are  by  this  art  once  or  twice  thrilled  just  enough  to 


94  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

make  us  realize  that  we  live  and  die  with  vastly  more  in  us 
than  we  ever  know  or  dream ;  and  perhaps  we  sicken  for  an 
instant  in  the  view  of  the  flitting  vistas  that  might  open.  We 
may  lose  all  contact  with  present  reality  and  float  ofif  expatiat- 
ing over  the  wide  areas  of  racial  experience  that  our  individu- 
ality is  vastly  too  restricted  to  realize.  The  limits  of  our 
personality  become  less  opaque,  more  transparent,  and  the  vast 
encompassing  phyletic  environment  that  stretches  beyond  is 
sensed.  Perhaps  the  eye  moistens,  the  heart  throbs,  we  sigh, 
the  muscles  grow  taut,  we  thrill  and  shiver,  long  for  light, 
love,  efficiency  which  we  can  never  attain,  or  rather  which  in 
essence  becomes  our  very  own,  though  but  just  for  a  fleeting, 
^tantalizing  instant.  Again,  spontaneous  images  of  the  most 
diverse  kinds,  in  the  domain  of  the  higher  senses,  and  for 
some  persons  of  every  sense,  with  every  degree  of  vividness, 
from  shadowy  dimness  to  almost  illusory  coercive  power, 
sometimes  utterly  detached  and  disconnected  and  again  se- 
quential and  serial,  crowd  the  imagination.  We  feel  ourselves 
catching  up  forgotten  themes  that  otherwise  would  have  en- 
tirely lapsed  from  our  lives  and  minds,  perhaps  working  them 
out  a  while,  then  dropping  them  for  others,  and  this  cerebra- 
tion goes  on  in  ways  that  actually  transform  the  background 
of  our  conscious  life.  Thus  we  are  sometimes  impelled,  al- 
though we  know  it  not,  up  and  on  the  evolutionary  way  of 
human  development  toward  new  regions  and  anticipate  what 
man  is  to  be  in  the  future  when  he  is  more  complete.  But 
more  probably  most  of  these  unique  psychic  experiences  con- 
sist of  rehearsing  in  vague  snatches  our  vast  ancestral  history, 
which  is  usually  submerged  in  ways  that  we  cannot  fathom  or 
explain,  till  we  know  vastly  more  of  the  modes  in  which 
heredity  in  all  its  countless  backward  reaches  makes  itself  felt 
in  the  soul.  After  a  musical  ecstasy  with  its  illuminating  and 
thrilling  vitalization,  its  play  upon  every  part  and  physiolog- 
ical function,  its  exquisite  mental  inebriation,  its  essential  and 
transcendental  discipline,  how  our  ideas  of  man's  soul  are 
vastated,  how  pitifully  narrow  and  inadequate  our  psychologies 
seem,  and  how  zealous  should  be  our  advocacy  of  a  pedagogy 
that  shall  guarantee  to  every  soul,  especially  during  adoles- 
cence, when  it  is  most  susceptible,  adequate  exposure  to  this 
art  that  has  in  it  more  promise  and  potency  than  any  other 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   MUSIC  95 

kind  of  culture,  that  is  without  exception  of  quintessential, 
liberal,  humanistic,  educational  value!  To  me  it  seems  that 
no  art  is  in  recent  years  growing  quite  so  fast  or  showing  so 
many  bold  new  departures,  is  making  more  progress  in  get- 
ting close  to  life,  finding  more  new  resources,  and  that  in  none 
does  teaching  lag  so  far  behind  what  it  could  and  should  do 
for  the  development  of  the  human  soul. 

But  does  music  pay  ?  To  the  mucker,  Philistine,  or  to  the 
pedagogue,  no ;  less  than  anything  else.  For  most  there  is  no 
money  in  it,  and  for  nearly  all  the  few  who  will  teach,  or  even 
perform,  but  very  little.  It  is  hard  to  examine  in  music  save 
in  mere  note  reading.  Young  children  do  not  under  present 
methods  feel  it  much,  and  older  ones  do  not  know  that  they 
do.  All  its  best,  most  edifying  and  preforming  effects  are 
very  far  beyond  the  reach  of  all  our  tests.  So  the  music  teach- 
ers must  cast  bread  on  the  waters,  sow  seed  they  will  never 
see  ripen,  walk  and  work  by  faith  and  not  by  sight,  and  are 
by  the  very  psychological  nature  of  the  subject  always  de- 
prived in  very  large  measure  of  the  fruition  that  is  the  true 
teacher's  best  reward.  Would  that  they  might  realize  more 
of  what  the  psychogenetecist  now  sees  of  the  pedagogic  effi- 
cacy of  music,  and  be  heartened  by  his  new  and  growing  re- 
spect for  their  work !  Would  even  that  they  might  hear  more 
and  oftener  the  best  music  so  as  to  be  led  captive  with  utter 
abandon  to  its  charm,  and  thus  become  more  idealistic  and 
learn  more  respect  for  their  own  vocation !  They  should 
learn  to  describe  to  pubescents  occasionally  in  words  what 
music  means  to  those  who  love  it,  interest  them  a  little  in  the 
lives  of  the  gjeat  composers,  performers,  and  singers,  tell  their 
classes  with  what  travail  of  soul  some  of  the  great  master- 
pieces were  created,  how  historic  virtuosos  have  entranced  vast 
audiences.  They  should  make  all  their  pupils  understand  what 
spells  have  been  cast  and  what  raptures  have  been  brought, 
what  battles  music  has  won  upon  bUxxly  fieUls,  what  patriotic 
movements  it  has  expressed  and  helped  create,  etc.  The  very 
history  of  some  of  the  great  national  airs  is  itself  an  inspira- 
tion. By  these  simple  melodies  and  words  countless  men  and 
women  have  died,  soothed  and  sustained  to  the  very  brink  of 
the  grave.  Here  is  a  little  group  of  songs  that  have  saved 
many  a  soul  from  sin,  have  led  wanderers  and  prodigals  home ; 


96  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

here  are  some  that  have  comforted  thousands  of  mourners 
whom  death  has  bereaved.  What  class  would  not  sing  the 
Marseillaise  hymn  vastly  better  after  having  been  told  a  little 
of  its  history  and  learning,  e.  g.,  how  the  Girondists  sang  it 
together  as  they  went  to  death  one  after  another,  the  chorus 
growing  fainter  but  the  air  sustained  till  the  last  head  fell  un- 
der the  guillotine  ?  Thoughout  the  South  to-day  it  is  not  the 
voice  as  much  as  the  heart  that  sings  "  Dixie,"  because  that  is 
a  melody  that  is  vital  and  not  desiccated.  Music  in  schools 
should  palpitate  with  the  emotional  life  in  which  the  best  of  it 
was  born.  It  should  be  set  in  its  matrix  of  historic  meaning, 
or  it  is  a  cold  and  clammy  thing.  Children  should  not  be 
asked  to  sing  unless  they  feel.  Without  emotion  music  is  de- 
natured, and  its  substance  is  sacrificed  to  its  form.  With  each 
vital  selection,  therefore,  should  go  the  story,  if  it  have  one, 
and  those  songs  that  have  stories  should  be  always  preferred. 
Music  can  express  the  soul  of  great  men,  epochs,  events,  races. 
These  can  live,  move,  and  have  their  being  in  music,  which  is 
thus  in  some  sense  the  very  soul  of  history,  especially  culture 
history.  It  should  be  given  this  setting  for  children.  The 
sentiment  of  the  period  and  the  personality  of  the  author  of 
"The  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic,"  "Die  Wacht  am 
Rhein,"  "  Rule  Britannia,"  etc.,  should  be  made  to  glow  in 
the  juvenile  soul  beforehand  by  vividly  and  carefully  prepared 
description  and  story.  Musicians  should  bd  full  of  patriotic, 
not  to  say  military,  spirit,  and  national  dance  music  •should, 
if  possible,  always  be  illustrated  somehow  with  the  steps  and 
postures  that  go  with  it ;  and  even  love  songs  should  be  set  in 
definite  circumstance  and  romance  to  the  imagination,  and,  if 
used,  should  be  made  to  elevate,  long-circuit,  and  idealize 
rather  than  to  sensualize  the  tender  passion.  School  music 
usually  lacks  all  this,  and  that  is  why  much  of  it  is  a  ghastly 
relic  made  up  of  technic,  intellect,  and  voice  culture,  from 
all  of  which  the  soul  has  gone.  Nowhere  has  the  logical  been 
so  oblivious  of,  or  opposed  to,  the  genetic  pedagogic  order. 
Current  methods  are  worse  than  teaching  the  child  natural 
history  from  a  few  dried  plants  or  stuffed  beasts  and  birds. 
I  honor  the  very  indifference  of  the  average  child  to  its  music 
lesson,  because  this  is  its  own  mute  protest  against  a  monstrous 
thing.     The  music  teacher  should  have  unusual  range  and 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   MUSIC  97 

strength  of  emotions,  and  should  never  require  pupils  to  sing- 
what  or  when  they  do  not  strongly  feel. 

As  we  are  here  concerned  with  education  we  must  pass 
very  slightly  over  the  tempting  field  of  music  in  the  insect, 
animal,  and  even  the  bird  world,  which  is  so  important  for 
the  psychogenesis  of  the  art.  I  cannot  conceive  how  any  can 
doubt  that  lower  creatures  truly  sing,  and  that  in  the  most 
vital  sense  of  the  art. 

H.  W.  Oldys  ^  thinks  that  in  both  birds  and  man  vocal  utter- 
ances began  with  simple  ejaculations  and  slowly  developed  increas- 
ing concatenation.  Some  birds  have  beautiful  voices  and  great  skill 
in  using  them,  while  others  with  less  power  of  brilliant  execution 
have  songs  that  rank  higher  as  musical  compositions.  Repetition  of 
single  notes  or  phrases,  and  combinations  and  variations  of  inter- 
vals are  common.  Most  writers  doubt  whether  birds  have  any  sense 
of  our  melodic  scale.  Some  except  the  cuckoo,  wren,  song  sparrow, 
woodthrush,  chewink,  robin,  and  so  on.  They  are  certainly  often 
close  to  our  notes.  Concerts  and  duets  this  author  thinks  he  has 
observed  and  describes.  There  are  sometimes  repetitions  so  that  the 
same  esthetic  rules  appear.  Some  birds,  it  is  well  known,  can  pro- 
duce human  melodies. 

The  gong-beat  method  of  the  Sarawak  Malays  is  very  complicated. 
Their  orchestra  usually  consists  first  of  several  small  gongs  on  a 
bamboo  framework,  a  larger  gong,  two  small  drums,  and  a  still 
larger  gong,  the  tawak.-  The  three  first  keep  excellent  time,  the 
third  emitting  a  high  note  irregularly,  accenting  the  first  of  every 
four  sounds.  The  tawak  has  what  seems  a  totally  independent 
rhythm.  It  is  beaten  in  various  modes,  all  of  which  seem  to  be 
marked  by  the  absence  of  time,  the  beats  recurring  with  incom- 
prehensible irregularity.  Yet,  when  an  expert  passed  his  instrument 
to  another,  the  novice  was  derided,  showing  that  only  an  expert 
could  play  it.  This  rhythm  is  accompanied  by  no  movement  or  song. 
Its  beats  are  damped  with  the  left  hand,  and  sometimes  the  body 
and  sometimes  the  central  boss  is  struck.  By  these  differences  this 
instrument  carries  news  of  death,  war,  and  childbirth,  each  mode 
of  beating  having  a  recognized  meaning.  Myers  had  a  Malay  tap 
upon  a  Morse  key  as  if  he  were  beating  the  tawak  and  registered 
the  time.  He  found  there  were  many  different  methods  at  first, 
his  time  figures  seemed  very  irregular.  He  finally  concluded,  how- 
ever, that  one  series  of  beats  was  grouped  in  two  alternately  recur- 

•  Parallel  Growth  of  Bird  and  Human  Music.  Harper's  Magazine,  1902,  vol. 
105,  pp.  474-478- 

'  Charles  S.  Myers:  A  Study  of  Rhythm  in  Primitive  Music,  Journal  of  Psychol- 
ogy, 1905,  vol.  1,  pp.  397-406. 
8 


98  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ring  bars  of  different  lengths,  one  of  them  comprising  seven  and 
five  tenths  units  or  tenths  of  seconds,  and  the  other  five  units.  The 
■beats  within  the  latter  bar  are  always  two  in  number  and  have  the 
values  of  two  and  three.  Those  in  the  former  bar  may  be  two  or 
three  in  number,  and  with  any  one  of  four  different  values.  The 
alternations  of  such  measures  would  not  be  appreciated  by  the  Euro- 
pean ear.  In  two  of  the  methods  the  beats,  separated  by  intervals 
of  different  lengths,  are  gathered  into  distinct  groups,  each  divided 
from  the  neighboring  groups  by  one  or  more  beats,  one  closing  with 
a  succession  of  very  rapid  and  the  other  with  very  slow  beats.  His 
studies  convinced  the  author  that  these  Malays  can  regard  many 
successively  different  intervals  of  time  as  a  coordinated  whole  which 
they  recognize  when  repeated  in  the  course  of  a  performance.  This 
faculty  they  carry  to  a  degree  which  lies  so  far  beyond  the  power 
of  civilized  musicians  that  the  latter  may  reasonably  be  skeptical  as 
to  the  possibility  of  its  occurrence  among  less  advanced  people.  But 
corroboration  has  been  found  by  Day,  who  gives  a  table  of  some 
forty  rhythmic  periods  of  early  Indian  music,  each  having  its  own 
name  and  mark  of  notation.  Day,  however,  found  it  hard  to  be- 
lieve that  such  complex  periods  were  ever  in  very  common  use. 
There  is,  however,  no  doubt  that  the  early  Indians,  like  the  Malays, 
enjoyed  the  faculty  of  combining  successive  dissimilar  periods  and 
of  regarding  them  as  members  of  a  complex  unity.  The  rhythms 
of  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Arabs  were  scarcely  less  complex.  The 
paeonic  and  hemiolic  rhythms  of  the  Greeks  are  remarkably  founded 
on  the  ratio  3 :  2.  Each  of  the  five  beats  some  think  could  be  sub- 
divided into  five,  so  that  the  foot  might  contain  the  ratios  of  15:10, 
the  precise  ratio  of  one  method  of  tawak  beating.  The  poetic 
meters  were  probably  overlain  by  musical  rhythms  just  as  the  tawak 
accompanies  the  gong  and  drum  orchestra.  It  is  pretty  well  made 
out  that  the  complexities  of  the  Greek  lyric  meter  are  due  to  over- 
lapping of  rhythms.  One  writer  ascribes  their  aesthetic  value  to  an 
effect  resembling  counterpoint  in  music.  Fillmore  says  of  the 
Omahas,  "  I  know  of  no  greater  rhythmical  difficulties  anywhere 
in  our  modern  music  than  these  Omahas  have  completely  at  com- 
mand in  their  everyday  music.  .  .  .  Rhythm  is  by  far  the  most 
elaborately  developed  element  of  Indian  music."  The  feeling  for 
rhythm  is  highly  developed  among  the  Japanese,  even  the  most  diffi- 
cult syncopations  being  performed  with  a  precision  that  would  as- 
tonish a  European  musician.  It  has  been  found  also  in  Siamese 
and  Javanese  music.  Sometimes  syncopation  and  change  of  rhythm 
are  so  frequent  that  we  are  unable  to  detect  any  constant  primary 
rhythm  at  all.  Others  have  emphasized  the  ability  of  the  American 
Indian  and  the  East  Indian  to  perform  five-  and  seven-pulse  measures. 
The  traits  of  primitive  music,  therefore,  are  a  delight  in  change  and 
opposition  of  rhythm  and  a  demand  that  relatively  long  periods  filled 
with  measures  of  diverse  length  be  apprehended  as  an  organic  whole 
or  phrase.     With  us  musical  progress  has  been  by  the  elaboration  of 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   MUSIC  99 

harmony  rather  than  of  rhythm.  With  the  advance  of  choral  sing- 
ing a  more  regular  and  frequent  accent  was  necessary  than  in  prim- 
itive music,  which  is  unhampered  by  the  demands  of  harmony  and 
polyphony  and  which  has  therefore  evolved  complications  of  succes- 
sion rather  than  of  simultaneity,  of  measure  than  of  tone.  In  early 
mediaeval  music  we  find  irregularities  and  often  defects  of  rhythm, 
and  in  recent  times  composers  often  obtained  novel  and  striking  ef- 
fects by  departures  from  uniform  conventional  rhythm.  Whether 
they  will  reattain  or  adopt  such  complex  rhythms  as  are  found 
among  certain  primitive  people  will  in  part  depend  upon  gradual 
education  of  the  audience  and  in  part  on  "  the  limiting  value  of  the 
strain  of  attention  which  is  compatible  with  aesthetic  pleasure." 

A  poet  and  musician,'  who  is  perhaps  better  known  as  an  author 
of  novels,  observed  that  his  own  children,  reared  in  a  musical  at- 
mosphere, in  their  dreamy  moods,  crooned  melodic  snatches  which 
were  utterances  of  sheer  emotion.  The  drawings  of  the  child  are 
very  whimsical  oddities.  Its  sayings  come  rather  nearer  expressing 
his  true  self.  But  the  true  evolution  of  the  child's  soul  from  within 
is  found  in  song.  When  twenty-eight  months  old,  the  author's  boy 
composed  and  sang  a  very  simple  phrase  to  the  words,  ''  I  saw  the 
pussy  in  granny's  window."  At  three,  a  longer  tune  was  uncon- 
sciously invented  to  the  words,  several  times  repeated,  "  Oh,  the  sun 
is  on  the  bath  and  the  birdies  are  building  nests  in  the  trees."  Var- 
ious others  express  a  dreamy  kind  of  wandering  in  more  or  less 
accented  notes.  The  second  boy,  at  seventeen  months,  uttered  a 
distinctly  musical  call,  imitated  a  trumpet  and  showed  a  distinct 
sense  for  key,  with  leanings  toward  plagal  cadences.  The  second 
child  is  quite  as  musical  as  the  first  but  less  prone  to  dreamy  solilo- 
quies. Some  of  these  songs  show  tonality ;  others  are  in  very 
marked  cantabile  style.  Occasionally  the  words  are  gibberish.  The 
real  minor  is  rare.  The  spontaneous  music  of  these  children  was 
easily  more  in  tune  than  music  that  they  had  learned.  The  author 
believes  that  canon,  instead  of  being  a  late  refinement  of  musical 
art,  is  one  of  its  earliest  developments,  and  is  led  to  this  view  by 
observations  on  his  own  children.  By  rolling  sheets  of  paper  like 
trumpets  the  children  would  improvise  in  unison,  the  elder  leading 
and  the  other  following  so  promptly  and  truly  that  it  was  difficult 
to  tell  which  was  the  leader.  So  when  the  father  invented  tunes, 
the  children  followed  with  startling  ease,  as  though  all  three  were 
inventing  the  same  thing  at  once.  If  the  scale  is  not  natural,  it  is 
certainly  imbibed  very  early,  although  when  very  young  children 
are  set  to  learn  even  simple  little  melodies,  they  lose  tune  at  once. 
The  author's  view  is  that  by  centuries  of  culture  and  experience  we 

'  Child  Music.  A  study  of  tunes  made  up  by  quite  young  childnn,  with  vt-ry 
striking  examples  and  illustrative  remarks,  concluding  'vith  e!alK)ratc  pitrcs  founded 
entirely  upon  young  children's  tunes.  By  William  Piatt.  Sinipkin,  Marshall  & 
Co.,  London,    1905,  37  p. 


lOO  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

have  discovered  a  scale  at  harmony  with  natural  law  which  is  quickly 
assimilated.  In  the  history  of  the  race,  the  plagal  cadence  is  earlier, 
and  children  redevelop  it  for  themselves;  but  in  the  history  of  con- 
certed music,  canon  is  an  early  feature,  and  this  children  rediscover. 
The  tunes  of  the  more  resolute  younger  boy  more  often  ended  on 
the  keynote.  Finally,  the  author  has  taken  these  simple  tunelets,  in- 
tact and  exactly  as  they  were  invented,  as  themes  for  rather  elabo- 
rate compositions  of  his  own,  often  adding,  however,  new  verses, 
but  adhering  closely  to  the  thematic  material  of  the  children.  One 
child  persistently  avoided  strong  accents. 

O.  Koerte  *  has  experimented  at  length  upon  his  seven  children 
by  teaching  them  music  at  home  and  reaches  the  conclusion  that 
the  ethical  movement,  which  many  artists  think  should  be  neglected 
for  the  technical  side,  should  be  supreme.  He  regrets  that  the 
copious  resources  of  music  are  not  brought  to  bear  effectively,  as 
they  should,  upon  either  the  masses  or  the  young.  Most  live  either 
without  music  or  with  bad  music.  Education  to  music  and  through 
music  are  parallel  and  mutually  determining  norms.  He  accepts 
Billroth's  answer  to  the  question.  Who  is  musical?  and  doubts  wheth- 
er all  have  by  nature  even  the  capacity  for  rhythm,  which  is  a  far 
more  complex  thing  than  mere  time  and  measure.  He  would  begin 
at  least  with  children  not  later  than  five,  and  lays  great  stress  upon 
imitation.  At  first  he  would  not  entirely  exclude  humor,  but  the 
basis  of  all  such  practice  should  be  folk  songs  and  child  songs  with 
simple  tonality  such  as  is  seen  in  the  chorals.  Good  music  can  be 
repeated  and  made  ever  new  by  light  dynamic  and  rhythmic  shad- 
ings and  variations.  Harmony,  such  as  a  piano  can  supply,  greatly 
supports  the  appreciation  of  not  only  music  but  even  melody  and 
intervals  in  the  child;  but  accompaniments  must  be  played  very 
lightly.  The  task  not  only  increases  interest  but  makes  the  innova- 
tion of  the  tone  easier.  Immediate  following  of  tones  eye  to  eye  is 
itself  a  valuable  discipline.  The  higher  tones  are  more  likely  to  cause 
detonative  singing.  He  would  practically  forbid  all  singing  of  scales, 
and,  of  course,  gives  the  major  scales  temporal,  as  they  also  have 
historic,  precedence.  Even  those  with  poor  voices  should  sing.^  Now 
that  we  know  the  limits  between  the  highest  and  the  lowest  notes 
which  the  average  child  sings  with  ease,  we  can  regulate  our  work 
accordingly.  Pronunciation  should  be  natural,  and  not  through  the 
teeth  or  nose,  as  so  many  are  prone  to  sing.  So  in  respiration  we 
should  be  careful  not  to  depart  far  from  nature.  All  instrumentation 
rests  on  somewhat  insecure  foundations  if  not  based  upon  singing. 

A.  Koenig '  says  that  children  should  early  learn  to  combine  tones 

^  Gedanken  und  Erfahrungen  iiber  musikalische  Erziehung.  Zeitschrift  fiir 
padagogische  Psychologic.     Berlin,  1902,  vol.  4,  p.  11-38. 

^  See  my  Adolescence,  vol.  2,  p.  27  et  seq. 

3  Die  Entwicklung  des  musikalischen  Sinnes  bei  Kindem.  Die  Kinderfehler, 
1903,  vol.  8,  pp.  49-61,  97-1  lo- 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   MUSIC  loi 

in  melody,  and  can  do  so  with  the  same  degree  of  creativeness  that 
they  can  mold  sand.  Preyer's  child  was  quieted  by  music  at  the 
age  of  six  weeks.  Striimpell  found  a  child  who  was  interested  in  the 
piano  at  the  age  of  twelve  weeks.  Rhythm  comes  very  early.  Preyer 
observed  tact  movements  at  eighteen  months.  Mystics  have  thought 
that  a  child  might  hear  "  divine  sighs  in  the  air  which  it  breathes." 
Of  course  the  music  must  be  very  simple  and  not  polyphonous.  The 
child  does  not  understand  beauty  of  musical  form  any  more  than 
it  can  understand  the  form  of  poetry.  Sense  for  the  spiritual  ele- 
ment of  music  does  not  occur  in  children.  Triiper  thinks  one 
third  of  the  children  hardly  hear  normally.  So  does  Monroe.  The 
May  of  life  blooms  but  once  and  soon  passes.  Perhaps  the  inner 
soul  of  music  is  most  felt  by  man,  and  woman  is  more  receptive. 
In  complex  rhythms  girls  are  more  helpless  than  boys.  Heredity  is 
uncertain.  Some  have  said  that  children  do  not  sing  of  their  own 
motive,  that  wordless  humming  occurs  only  by  adults,  that  children 
only  use  words;  but  others  think  children  perceive  music  before 
they  can  learn  words.  Simmel,  speaking  of  yodeling,  thinks  music 
is  connected  with  sex.  According  to  Groos,  primitive  music  is  con- 
nected with  war.  Speech  and  music  give  to  hearing  its  first  signifi- 
cance and  lift  man  into  the  psychic  sphere.  Perhaps  in  training 
numbers  we  must  aim  only  at  mediocrity.  Musical  memory  is  little 
used.  Koenig  proposes  an  elaborate  questionnaire  to  ascertain  cer- 
tain facts  about  the  early  development  of  music  and  rhythm. 

Miss  Hofer  *  says  self-activity,  spontaneity,  self-expression,  play, 
spirit,  must  be  the  watchwords  in  music  as  in  all  other  things,  and 
inceptive  work,  which  recognizes  native  impulses,  needs  more  at- 
tention. Unmusical  teachers  do  great  injury.  The  end  of  all  train- 
ing which  aims  at  ear-mindedness  must  be  to  arouse  the  conscious- 
ness for  voice,  tone,  inflection,  tempo,  and  to  develop  musical 
consciousness  by  increased  capacity  for  hearing  and  appreciating 
tone.  This  is  greatly  aided  by  using  the  voice.  People  who  cannot 
sing  have  been  neglected  at  this  nascent  period.  Language  should 
be  more  inflected  and  not  hurried  or  chattered.  Song  should  be 
musical  conversation,  and  speech,  music,  and  language  should  blend. 
Musical  good  mornings  and  perhaps  simple  original  creations  with 
imitative  songs,  help  the  child  to  appreciate  the  music  of  nature, 
which  is  very  important.  The  child  can  understand  what  occurs 
to  the  ear  and  mind,  long  before  it  can  produce.  Music  ought  to  be 
a  means  of  communicating  ideas. 

W.  S.  Monroe '  found  that  young  children  give  to  musical  sounds 
degrees  of  sustained  attention  quite  out  of  proportion  to  the  normal 
control  of  their  activities,  and  often  learn  to  sing  before  they  can 

'  Educational  Use  of  Music  for  Children  under  the  Age  of  Seven.  .'\d.  and 
Proc.,  N.  E.  A.,  1900,  pp.  3Q7-402. 

*  Tone  Perception  and  Music  Interests  of  Young  Children.  Ped.  Sem.,  1903, 
vol.  10,  pp.  144-146. 


I02  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

talk.  Rhythmic  measures  of  tonal  kinds  very  early  cause  pleasure 
and  pain.  From  data  concerning  i6i  children  under  six,  he  found 
that  29  of  the  boys  and  49  of  the  girls  could  be  taught  to  sing  the 
scale.  From  four  to  five  years,  34  per  cent  of  the  boys  and  59  per 
cent  of  the  girls  could  learn  it.  At  six  the  proportions  were  boys 
41  per  cent,  girls  71  per  cent.  Some  could  learn  only  a  portion  of 
the  scale,  difficulties  with  the  upper  notes  being  greatest.  Some  are 
limited  in  the  perception  of  high  tones.  Children  were  also  taught 
to  sing  simple  songs  and  a  fortnight  later  to  reproduce  them,  which 
50  per  cent  of  the  girls  and  63  per  cent  of  the  boys  did.  The  memory 
of  songs  exceeds  that  of  scales,  although  it  is  more  complex.  This 
is  due  perhaps  to  rhythm  and  to  association  with  the  concrete  sub- 
jects of  such  songs;  2y  per  cent  of  the  boys  and  59  per  cent  of  the 
girls  seemed  to  have  special  tastes  for  music,  the  male  curve  drop- 
ping as  age  advances,  while  girls'  interest  rises.  Zufall  found 
auditory  defects  20  per  cent  more  common  among  males  than  fe- 
males in  Germany,  and  D'Espine,  in  France,  found  deafness  22  per 
cent  more  common  among  men  than  women.  In  the  private  schools 
for  the  deaf  in  this  country  there  are  10  per  cent  more  boys  than 
girls.  Jastrow  and  Morehaus  showed  that  women  students'  hearing 
is  more  acute  than  that  of  men.  All  this  indicates  feminine  superior- 
ity in  tone  perception  and  musical  interest,  although  women  have 
done  little  in  musical  composition. 

Alice  B.  Gomme  has  collected  and  edited  ancient  movement  songs 
from  English  children  and  prints  them  with  copious  annotations, 
music  and  illustrations,  in  an  interesting  series.^  Most  of  these  con- 
sist three-fourths  or  more  of  repetitions,  or  perhaps  the  successive 
verses  have  only  one  word  different  in  each.  But  there  is  a  great  deal 
of  movement  and  rhythrp,  and  otherwise  much  imaginative  and  mimic 
action — milking,  riding,  weeping,  dancing,  dandling  babies,  wash- 
ing, ceremonious  salutes,  ancient  rural  games,  often  with  intense 
emotional  coloring,  drinking,  murdering,  loving,  and  death.  There 
could  hardly  be  a  greater  disparity  between  these  and  the  more 
recently  made  games  and  plays  for,  of,  and  by,  children. 

Charles  E.  Keyes,  West  Brookfield,  Massachusetts,  has  for 
several  years  studied  and  recorded  the  progress  made  in  musical 
education.  He  usually  taught  from  thirty  to  fifty  rote  songs  each 
year,  beginning  with  thirty  in  the  first  and  reaching  fifty  in  the 
third  grade.  In  rote  work  the  child  follows  a  good  form  of  music 
far  better  than  the  jangle  usually  taught.  Words  in  music  are  the 
chief  difficulty;  if  they  are  too  old  there  is  trouble.  In  songs  about 
animals,  trees,  devotion,  nature,  patriotism,  motion,  children  are  at 
home.  Absolute  pitch  is  of  no  account.  A  little  work  cures  all 
those  who  first  sing  in  monotone.  One  boy  learned  to  sing  correctly 
holding  his  music  upside  down.  At  the  sixth  grade,  too,  practical 
music    sense    is    well   established.      Sometimes    the    nasty    and    most 

'  Children's  Singing  Games.     Nutt:  London,  1894,  70  p. 


THE    PEDAGOGY    OF    MUSIC 


103 


noisy  little  rowdies  prefer  the  softest  and  sweetest  songs.  Boys 
who  have  not  been  taught  to  read  music  usually  lack  interest  in  it. 
From  a  vast  number  of  tests  made  Mr.  Keyes  found  that  of  28,225 
who  sang,  74  persons  sang  correctly.  This  difference  was  far  less 
between  boys  and  girls  than  had  been  supposed.  Boys  and  girls 
usually  prefer  the  music  to  the  words.  Individual  methods  are 
specially  commended.  Mr.  Keyes's  exhibits  show  great  progress.  In 
the  third  grade  the  first  test  in  individual  singing  showed  that  out 
of  235  pupils  only  45  failed.  In  another  exhibit  out  of  375  only  37 
failed.  This,  so  far  as  I  know,  is  an  unparalleled  record.  The  test 
was  confined  to  the  ability  to  read  and  sing  music  at  sight  alone. 
In  the  choice  of  songs  the  ethical  led,  then  came  those  of  patriotism, 
nature  songs  in  a  minor  key,  and  the  seasons. 

J.  A.  Gilbert  ^  experimented  on  the  comparative  power  of  dis- 
crimination between  notes  by  the  method  of  minimal  gradation. 
Each  experiment  was  composed  of  two  tones  and  a  judgment  as  to 
their  likeness.  The  tone  varied  from  was  A  (equals  435  vibrations 
of  the  international  pitch).  The  variations  were  in  32nds  of  a  full 
tone.  First  A  was  sounded,  then  one,  two,  and  higher,  until  the 
child  several  times  decided  that  the  second  tone  was  different,  ten 
experiments  being  made  on  each 
child  with  a  tone  tester.  Five 
boys  and  girls  of  each  age  from 
six  to  nineteen  were  thus  tested. 
The  results  are  shown  in  the  fol- 
lowing table,  where  the  figures 
on  the  horizontal  axis  indicate 
ages  and  those  in  the  vertical 
column  represent  the  number  of 
32nds  of  a  tone  required  to 
produce  the  sensation  of  differ- 
ence. We  thus  see  at  first  the 
rapid  increase  of  discriminative 
power  from  some  twelve  to  five 
32nds  of  a  note  between  six  and 
nine  years  of  age,  and  from  that 
age  to  nineteen  there  is  a  total 
improvement  of  only  two  32nds 

of  a  note,  with  years  of  deterioration  culminating  at  ten  and  fifteen, 
due  perhaps  to  teething  and  puberty  respectively. 

Only  three  needed  more  than  half  a  tone.  This  increase  was 
very  great  until  nine,  and  then  to  ten  there  was  a  rather  marked 
remission,  and  another  from  about  fourteen  to  fifteen.  With  these 
exceptions  the  curve  is  rather  smooth  and  asymptotic.  lo  verify 
the  expansions  at  ten  and  fifteen,  tests  were  made  on  other  children, 


COMPARATIVE  POWER  OF  DISCRIMINATION  BETWEEN 
NOTES  BY  METHOD  OF  MINIMAL  GRADATION 

y 

\ 

^ 

\ 

\ 

V 

\ 

/ 

\ 

> 

N 

} 

\ 

*^ 

■^ 

f 

\ 

\ 

«, 

10    11     12     13     U     IB     to     17     18     U 


*  Experiments  on  the  Musical  Sensitiveness  of  School  Children.     Studies  from 
the  Yale  Psychological  Laboratory,  1892,  vol.  i,  pp.  80-87. 


I04  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

but  this  general  result  remained.  A  similar  period  of  augmentation 
appears  to  have  occurred  at  twenty,  after  which  it  drops  again  as 
before. 

A  very  interesting  study  was  made  by  Fanny  B.  Gates. ^  Two 
thousand  papers  from  one  hundred  boys  and  girls  of  each  age 
from  seven  and  under  to  sixteen  and  over,  as  to  their  favorite  songs 
were  collected  and  classified.  The  largest  class  was  social,  includ- 
ing folk,  negro,  home,  school,  and  love.  Under  seven  these  were 
often  lullabies.  Home  songs  gradually  decline  up  the  grades. 
School  songs,  beginning  with  43  per  cent  each  at  seven  years,  fell  to 
two  per  cent  in  girls  and  five  per  cent  in  boys  at  sixteen.  Negro 
melodies  were  twice  as  often  favorite  with  boys  as  with  girls.  Re- 
ligious songs  increased  in  general  up  the  grades.  Patriotic  songs 
attained  their  maximum  of  29  per  cent  with  girls  at  twelve,  and  40 
per  cent  with  boys  at  fifteen  The  choice  of  songs  on  account  of 
words  in  general  decreases  with  age,  and  music  comes  to  the  fore. 
Rhythm  begins  as  a  dual  balance,  and  in  its  simpler  forms  is  always 
based  upon  two.  Perhaps  if  we  had  three  arms  and  legs  triple 
measure  would  predominate.  In  recalling  music  rhythm  often  comes 
first.  It  gives  a  sense  of  movement.  Very  young  children  sometimes 
have  strong  favorites  because  of  the  lilt.  The  bushman  sings  in  his 
dance  till  exhausted,  and  from  this  grows  the  symphony.  Chorley 
says  national  music  was  derived  from  dances.  Patriotic  music  was 
chosen  by  18  per  cent  of  the  boys  and  17  per  cent  of  the  girls,  boys 
being  most  interested  in  history.  Among  the  Sandwich  Islanders 
their  history  is  preserved  in  song.  This  is  true  in  Greenland  and  in 
Africa,  where  wandering  minstrels  glorified  the  chief.  Spencer  says 
national  airs  are  aflfected  by  the  intonations  of  speech.  This  seems 
true  of  Italy  and  Scotland;  but  some  savages  have  pleasant  language 
but  rude  music.  Association  with  special  scenes  frequently  deter- 
mines the  choice.  Gurney  denies  association  except  as  a  merely  in- 
tellectual process.  Some  are  almost  visionary  and  some  always  think 
of  motion  in  connection  with  their  favorite  songs.  Some  have  chills 
and  shudders,  stand  on  tiptoe,  etc.  Mendelssohn  said  that  music 
expresses  things  too  definite  for  words.  Words  mean  different 
things  for  different  persons,  but  song  can  awake  only  the  same  feel- 
ing in  all.  Music  exists  only  inside  the  subject.  Galton  found  a 
great  falling  off  in  the  power  of  hearing  high  notes  with  age. 
Small  dogs  could  hear  high  notes;  large  ones  could  not.  Cats  ex- 
celled in  this.     Binet  found  twelve  per  cent  had  colored  hearing. 

Children  often  prefer  certain  keys  and  rarely  minor  ones.  In 
southern  Mexico  the  jolly  songs  of  the  natives  are  sad,  and  their 
merry  ones  seem  to  us  melancholy.  Australian  music  chimes  in 
with  the  words.  The  rudest  forms  have  some  scale.  At  first,  in- 
tervals less  than  one  tone  were  avoided.     In  the  Stone  Age  instru- 

'  Musical  Interests  of  Children.  Journal  of  Pedagogy,  Oct.,  1898,  vol.  11,  pp. 
265-284. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   MUSIC  105 

ments  corresponded  to  part  of  our  diatonic  scale.  Engel  thinks  the 
pentatonic  scale  easiest  for  children.  Waterhouse  found  a  gibbon 
singing  the  chromatic  scale,  and  another  writer  found  a  bird  that 
sang  down  eight  to  twelve  true  notes.  Cheney  says  bird  music  has 
the  same  intervals  and  uses  major  and  minor  keys.  He  believes  that 
with  a  good  ear  and  equal  chance,  two  persons,  no  matter  how  far 
apart,  would  develop  similar  taste  and  perception  for  music.  This 
is  pedagogically  significant.  Reisman  thinks  folk  songs  best  for 
children.  Music  should  fit  the  mood.  We  should  not  teach  spring 
songs  in  the  fall.  Becker,  of  Berlin,  says  the  child  on  leaving 
school  should  know  thirty  songs  and  one  hundred  chorals  by  heart, 
and  this  is  better  for  most  than  all  the  power  to  read  music  which 
the  school  can  give.  Notes  should  come  in  the  middle  of  the  gram- 
mar course,  but  singing  first.  Home,  school,  church,  state,  nation, 
can  be  thus  trained. 

In  Asia  few  traces  of  original  music  can  be  found.  One  writer 
says  ancient  Indian  music  has  been  lost  save  a  few  pastorals.  Mo- 
hammed thought  music  a  device  of  the  devil  to  ruin  man.  Liszt  says 
all  Hungarian  national  music  is  pure  gypsy,  or  borrowed,  or  stolen. 
Another  thinks  the  law  of  accent  is  the  same  in  Hungarian  music 
and  language,  and  opposed  to  that  of  the  gypsy  language.  Our 
Indians  are  very  musical.  Among  the  Damaras  in  South  Africa  the 
highest  ideal  is  to  imitate  galloping  horses.  Rhythm  predominates 
over  melody,  and  music  is  associated  with  intense  exercise.  The 
Papuans  have  a  kind  of  Meistersinger  school.  Certain  songs  can  be 
sung  only  by  those  of  certain  rank,  and  physicians  attend  their 
patients  to  the  accompaniment  of  music.  Convalescents  must  sing 
several  hours  a  day.  In  many  primitive  people  the  male  voice  is 
high.  Berg  thinks  it  was  so  in  primitive  man  and  low  voices  are  a 
late  development.  Wallaschek  doubts  this,  for  savages  would  have 
had  female  voices  since  boys'  voices  fall.  But  he  attributes  high 
pitch  to  excitement. 

Darwin  thinks  music  and  rhythm  originated  as  a  sex  charm.  It 
excites  tenderness,  ardor,  war.  Spencer  derives  it  from  emotional 
speech.  It  awakens  dormant  sentiments  of  which  we  had  not  con- 
ceived the  possibility  and  do  not  know  the  meaning.  They  appear 
like  mental  reversions  to  the  emotions  and  thoughts  of  a  long  passed 
age.  Perhaps  the  power  of  music  has  been  sublimated  out  of  coarse 
excitements  to  higher  emotions  which  we  can  no  longer  explain. 
Wallaschek  dissents  from  Darwin  and  Spencer  that  music  grew  out 
of  speech  or  that  the  original  music  was  love  song  transmuted.  He 
says  only  music  can  tell  what  it  expresses.  Hudson  says  the  song 
of  the  male  birds  on  La  Plata  during  the  pairing  season  is  feeble 
and  sketchy,  interspersed  with  love  antics;  but  only  after  the  mate 
is  chosen  are  songs  melodious.  Hence  he  thinks  that  conscious 
sexual  selection  on  the  part  of  the  female  is  not  the  cause  of  music 
and  dancing  performances  of  the  males,  nor  of  the  bright  colors  and 
ornaments    that    distinguish    him.      Wallaschek    thinks   there    is   no 


io6  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

speech  in  songs.  It  arises  purely  from  the  rhythmic  impulse.  Time 
preceded  melody.  Music  expressed  emotions  and  stands  to  speech 
as  drawing  to  writing.  Gurney  thinks  the  vocal  expression  of  a 
particular  emotion  came  first  and  then  followed  vocal  expression  in 
general.  The  vital  element  in  emotion  is  its  idealized  rendering. 
This  Sully  denies,  claiming  that  melody  is  the  essential  part  of  music 
and  is  a  fusion  of  rhythm  and  pitch.  Music  rather  than  poetry  is 
the  happy  art.     "  It  gives  to  children  nothing  but  heaven." 

As  to  reasons  for  their  choices,  children  in  the  Gates  study  were 
usually  unable  to  express  themselves  except  by  saying  because  it  was 
sweet,  lively,  fast,  sad,  etc.  The  sense  of  rhythm  was  very  promi- 
nent. The  swing  and  lilt  and  possibility  of  using  the  music  as  a 
dance  was  often  expressed.  Older  children  dealt  often  with  patriotic 
reasons.  This  suggests  how  primitive  people  often  develop  tradi- 
tions based  upon  history  which  are  preserved  in  song,  and  chant  the 
deeds  of  their  ancestors,  or  how  wandering  minstrels  glorify  their 
chief.  Association  was  one  of  the  most  interesting  reasons  of  pref- 
erence. The  whip-poor-will  suggests  a  country  home.  A  southern 
song  revives  familiar  scenes  by  those  whose  early  home  was  in  the 
south.  Other  songs  suggest  the  hills,  sea,  flowers,  birds,  bells, 
winter,  midsummer.  Several  specified  that  in  different  moods  they 
enjoyed  different  songs. 

In  this  study  a  number  of  interesting  cases  of  colored  audition 
were  found.  Vowels  have  most  color,  while  consonants  are  faded. 
A  is  usually  red.  One  lady  saw  green  when  she  heard  Haydn,  blue 
when  she  heard  Mozart,  yellow  on  hearing  Chopin,  etc.  When  she 
hears  an  oboe  she  sees  a  white  pyramid;  on  hearing  a  'cello  or  a 
trumpet,  sees  a  flat,  undulating  ribbon  of  white  fibers ;  in  an  orchestra 
when  the  violins  strike  up  she  sees  a  shower  of  white  dust.  Some  see 
mosaics.   Only  a  few  prefer  minor  songs  or  have  preference  for  keys. 

E.  L.  .Norton  ^  says  music  must  conform  to  the  actual  present  in- 
terests of  the  child  and  to  the  potential  adult.  The  best  songs  are 
those  in  which  most  are  interested  and  whose  effects  last  longest. 
One  function  is  to  unite  child  and  adult  and  not  sever  them.  The 
earlier  songs  should  be  simple,  not  complex,  possibly  on  the  five- 
note  scale,  with  bright  tempo,  allegro  rather  than  adagio,  the  two- 
rhythm  rather  than  the  three-rhythm,  closely  related  to  life,  etc. 
There  are  humorous  songs  like  those  of  Taubert  that  are  refined  and 
classic.  Perhaps  no  rhythm  is  bad  in  itself,  although  some  arouse 
and  others  soothe  and  intoxicate.  The  two-step  rhythm  arouses 
animal  spirits,  puts  vitality  into  motor  play  and  subdues  everything  to 
its  own  form.  Good  music  may  be  adapted  to  children's  needs  if  this 
is  skillfully  done.  Old  music,  hymns,  ballads,  lyrics,  and  love  songs, 
if  connected  with  religious  sentiment,  as,  for  instance,  bywords,  are 
to  be  commended. 

*  The  Selection  of  School  Songs.  Elementary  School  Teacher,  1904,  vol.  5,  pp. 
148-158. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    MUSIC  107 

E.  K.  Fairweather  ^  holds  that  music  is  the  chief  expression  and 
method  of  training  of  the  heart  and  all  the  sentiments  and  emotions. 
The  lack  of  it  makes  men  desiccated  and  unhearty  and,  though  they 
may  be  smart,  leaves  their  emotional  life  shallow  and  dry.  If  the 
feelings  languish  the  imagination  does  so.  Music  teaches  by  con- 
tagion and  like  poetry  "  lifts  the  veil  from  the  hidden  beauty  of  the 
world."  It  keeps  the  soul  in  relation  to  the  deepest  realities  and 
gives  a  medium  for  expressing  what  is  felt.  Perhaps  the  fundamen- 
tal trouble  in  teaching  music  to  children  is  the  lack  of  appreciation 
of  rhythm.  Harmony  is  akin  to  law.  The  author  thinks  children 
might  attempt  little  musical  compositions  of  their  own  as  a  mode  of 
development  and  expression.  Busy  hours  take  care  of  themselves 
but  we  should  chiefly  be  anxious  for  the  child's  leisure  time.  We 
greatly  lack  healthy  and  innocent  recreation.  As  a  universal  lan- 
guage music  transcends  all  differences  of  age  and  culture  and  makes 
for  social  unity.  Never  has  the  world  needed  music  so  much  as  to- 
day. It  is  a  moral  law  and  gives  the  soul  over  to  the  universe,  the 
ideal  of  order,  and  suggests  the  invisible. 

Max  Meyer"  thinks  the  chief  object  of  musical  training  should 
be  to  make  the  pupils  enjoy  music  rather  than  to  read  notes  or  sing 
and  play.  It  is  often  hard  to  understand  a  complex  musical  pro- 
duction like  a  sonata,  and  he  advises  the  aid  of  visual  sensations, 
and  especially  approves  Hovker's  scheme.  His  pictures  are  used  at 
the  first  instruction  to  call  the  pupil's  attention  to  the  fact  that  every 
song  is  composed  of  partial  tunes  or  phrases,  each  of  which  is  rep- 
resented by  a  figure.  These  pictures,  however,  help  far  more  in  help- 
ing to  understand  coexistence  than  they  do  succession.  Very  young 
pupils  can  thus  associate  figures  with  tunes.^  As  a  result  of  much 
experience  and  labor,  he  has  devised  a  graphic  scheme  of  presenting 
music,  particularly  fugues  and  sonatas,  to  the  eye.  For  this  purpose 
he  dispenses  with  all  but  the  heads  of  notes  and  connects  these  by 
lines,  omitting  all  time  signs,  and  carrying  the  chief  theme  in  a  form 
picture.  He  often,  too,  dispenses  with  one,  two,  or  three  lines  of  the 
staff,  so  that  his  scheme  slightly  suggests  the  holes  in  a  pianola  roll 
connected  with  lines.  By  supplementing  this  method  with  colored  dots 
and  lines  and  by  the  occasional  use  of  small  circles,  it  is  possible  to 
represent  one,  or,  indeed,  a  number  of  parts  and  instruments  in  an 
orchestra.  Verbal  explanations  appended  show  the  leading  motive, 
subordinate  phrases,  elaborations,  and  the  various  other  divisions. 
By  this  means  those  who  do  not  read  music,  it  is  claimed,  are  able  to 
follow  it  more  intelligently  and  to  recall  the  chief  motives.     Their 

'  Psychological  and  Ethical  Value  of  Music.  .\ilr.  and  Prut .  of  the  N.  K.  A. 
ic>o2,  pp.  621-^)25. 

'  How  a  Musical  Kducation  Should  Ix*  Ac(|uin<l  in  tlu-  Puhlit  S< hool.  Pr<la- 
gogical  Seminary,  i<)oo,  vol.  7,  pp.  124-131. 

*  Die  graphisthe  Darstellung  als  Mittfl  der  Krzirhunn  /um  musikalischen 
HSren,  von  Robert  Hovker.     Otto  Schuize,  Gcithen,  i8<j(},  31  \>. 


io8  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

attention  is  called  to  symmetry,  opposition,  reversal,  and  other 
aesthetic  elements,  and  particularly  for  those  eye-minded,  and  also 
for  those  who  desire  assistance  in  penetrating  the  mysteries  of  mu- 
sical theory,  it  may  be  of  assistance.  It  is  urged,  too,  that  young 
children  by  this  method  are  able  to  apperceive  and  intelligently 
appreciate  a  much  more  refined  and  advanced  kind  of  music  than 
would  otherwise  be  possible.  Of  course  no  one  can  judge  the  merits 
of  such  a  scheme  without  considerable  observation  of  its  actual 
working  in  practice.  It  has,  however,  interesting  suggestions  for 
the  psychologist. 

J.  Courtier  ^  tested  musical,  which  had  nothing  to  do  with  acous- 
tic, memory.  There  were  nine  association  types  between  hearing, 
sight,  word,  feeling,  motion.  These  conservatory  pupils  showed  that 
a  good  musical  memory  demanded  not  only  sharp  correct  musical 
hearing,  but  also  a  good  voice.  Those  with  good  tones  and  memory 
were  often  weak  in  rhythm.  Most  could  reproduce  pitch  and 
accuracy,  others  were  weak  in  it  and  also  in  intervals,  which  they 
could  not  evaluate.  It  is  hard  to  tell  whether  in  these  reproductions 
hearing  or  motor  concepts  or  both  were  effective. 

Kratz  ^  had  three  selections  of  very  different  character  played 
and  asked  high-school  pupils  to  note  and  later  to  write  down  the  im- 
pressions each  piece  gave,  and  to  give  it  an  appropriate  title.  One 
represented  the  mad  pranks  of  the  harlequin  and  was  rightly  inter- 
preted by  a  great  number.  A  cradle  song  was  most  difficult,  per- 
haps because  the  sentiments  were  not  adequately  conveyed  by  the 
composer.  To  meditate,  muse,  be  soothed,  and  hear  a  lullaby,  opens 
the  heart  to  many  emotions.  Girls  had  more  natural  views  on  music 
and  understood  their  inner  selves  and  discriminated  more  closely  in 
their  attempts  to  portray  feeling  than  did  boys.  A  wide  range  of 
both  sensations  and  emotions  was  aroused,  such  as  the  impulse  to 
dance,  feeling  nervous  thrills,  muscles  twitching,  happy  moods,  desire 
to  run  a  race,  do  a  great  deed.  Many  could  not  express  the  im- 
pressions aroused  by  the  music.  Perhaps  much,  normally  too  deep 
for  words,  can  be  uttered  by  practice.  At  any  rate,  it  helps  us  to 
become  acquainted  with  emotions,  longings,  yearnings,  that  are  too 
deep  for  words,  and  thus  may  aid  us  to  shape  our  characters  more 
intelligently. 

Gaiffe*  holds  that  the  end  of  musical  instruction  is  first  to 
educate  a  very  small  number  of  musicians  well ;  and  secondly,  to 
so  train  a  large  number  that  they  can  hear  and  enjoy  the  great 
masterpieces  of  music. 

'  Communication  sur  la  memofre  Musicale.  Ill  Internal.  Congress  f.  Psychol. 
Munchen,  1897,  pp.  238-240. 

^  Study  in  Musical  Interpretation.     Adr.  and  Proc.  of  the  N.  E.  A.,  1900,  pp. 

590-591- 

'  F.  Gaiffe:  La  Musique  a  I'Ecole.  In  L'Educateur  Modeme,  July,  1909, 
vol.  4,  pp.  308-318. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   MUSIC  109 

The  data  collected  on  the  effects  of  barbaric  music  on  civ- 
ilized children  are  unsatisfactory.  Many  children  have  heard 
Chinese,  Indian,  and  other  crude  music  at  exhibitions,  etc. 
Some  think  it  a  joke  and  very  laughable,  some  are  simply 
bored ;  to  others  it  is  unpleasant  or  even  distressing.  To  some 
it  is  monotonous,  and  makes  them  sleepy ;  a  few  love  it  all 
very  much.  And  some  feel,  as  a  high-school  girl  expressed  it, 
that  they  would  like  to  "  shake  off  the  dust  of  civilization  and 
get  back  to  nature  and  be  at  home."  Mr.  Farwell's  harmo- 
nized and  adapted  Indian  music,  which  is  perhaps  less  "  sophis- 
ticated with  culture  than  Longfellow's  *  Hiawatha,'  "  he  re- 
ports as  pleasing  to  children ;  and  Natalie  Curtis's  singing  of 
the  Indian  songs  noted  in  her  fascinating  "  Indian  Book," 
which  is  far  more  aboriginal,  is  as  charming  to  hear  as  Alice 
Fletcher's  Sioux  songs  or  Cushing's  Zuni  melodies,  if  such 
they  can  be  called,  are  to  read.  All  this  has  a  charming  nov- 
elty, and  excites  curiosity  in  old  and  young.  Savage  music 
differs  very  widely  in  both  kind  and  degree  of  development. 
From  rhythmic  noises  to  music  which  follows  laws  that  even 
seem  to  us  as  much  more  complicated  than  those  that  underlie 
modern  music  as  the  grammar  of  savage  tongues  seems  more 
intricate  than  that  of  English,  is  a  long  way.  Even  a  slight 
degree  of  musical  culture  on  the  part  of  the  child  tends  to 
make  primitive  music  seem  stranger  than  it  otherwise  would. 
If  we  could  grade  the  latter  from  lowest  to  highest  along  the 
genuine  phyletic  scale  of  development  and  expose  an  untutored 
modern  child  to  its  stages,  we  should  then,  and  only  then,  be 
able  to  answer  the  question  how  crude  native  music  affects 
our  children.  Till  then  this  rapport  between  ontogeny  and 
phylogeny  must  be  left  in  abeyance.  Approximative  data  could 
now  doubtless  be  collected  that  would  give  valuable  cues  and 
suggestions.  Meanwhile  my  own  impression  is  that  there  are 
rudiments  in  the  child's  soul  that  will  respond  to,  and  could 
best  be  developed  by,  some  of  the  crude  elemental  music,  when 
we  really  know  what  is  most  typical  of  it.  and  what  age  it 
fits  best,  and  that  even  old  folk  songs,  and  far  more  the  usually 
babyfied  music  in  our  first  courses,  now  force  the  child  to  skip 
an  important  stage  in  its  indigenous  musical  evolution  which 
could  be  made  good  use  of,  and  the  present  expression  of  which 
is  a  lost  chord  between  the  child  and  the  race  which  we  should 


no  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

seek  to  restore  in  the  interests  of  humanistic  musical  culture. 
Present  methods  isolate  music  too  early  from  its  broad  nour- 
ishing basis  of  rhythmic  movement,  action,  cadenced  inflection, 
and  feeling  generally,  and  make  it  an  independent  cult,  spe- 
cialized and,  worst  of  all,  technical,  before  it  has  performed 
the  supreme  function  of  its  nascent  state  in  cultivating  the 
emotional  life,  and,  if  not  creating,  at  least  conserving  impor- 
tant factors  of  it. 

Music  in  the  modern  sense  is  one  of  the  hardest  and  latest 
as  well  as  one  of  the  most  intricate  products  of  human  culture, 
and  this  fact  must  be  invoked  in  addition  to  lack  of  training 
in  order  to  understand  why  we  find  children  at  every  stage 
of  undevelopment  and  arrest,  from  amusia  and  musical  idiocy 
up.  Our  returns  abound  in  cases  like  the  following :  a  bright, 
witty,  but  cold,  selfish  girl  of  fourteen  cannot  sing  at  all,  and 
has  no  idea  of  pitch;  a  bright  boy  of  sixteen  never  sang  or 
whistled;  an  only  child  of  twelve  with  peculiar  ear  defect 
seems  unable  to  tell  one  note  from  another ;  a  boy  of  fourteen 
could  not  sing  at  all,  and  apparently  had  little  idea  of  what 
music  was,  but  by  diligent  training  sang  fairly  well  at  sixteen ; 
a  boy  of  seventeen  persistently  sang  in  monotones,  singing 
louder  where  he  should  sing  higher  in  pitch,  but  had  a  fair 
sense  of  time;  a  boy  of  fifteen  sang  up  and  down  the  scale 
when  others  singing  with  him  did,  but  varied  four  or  five 
notes  only,  so  that,  where  there  were  high  notes,  he  sang  sev- 
eral tones  too  low  and  vice  versa.  Music  is  painfully  exciting 
to  some,  who  are  made  cross  by  it.  Some  distinguish  tunes 
of  similar  character,  like  church  tunes,  chiefly  or  only  by 
words ;  otherwise  all  tunes  are  alike  to  them.  Some  are  essen- 
tially indifferent  to  or  are  bored  by  music.  Frequently  young 
children  can  be  taught  to  keep  time  only  with  difficulty  and 
cannot  march  with  others,  or  can  do  so  only  by  rocking  their 
whole  body,  watching  the  step  of  their  mates,  and  fixing  their 
whole  attention  on  it.  Very  many  mofe  have  but  languid  in- 
terest in  music,  and  hardly  ever  any  feeling  or  appreciation  for 
it,  although  doing  the  school  work  fairly  well.  These  are  sam- 
ples of  many  cases  reported  by  teachers  of  music  in  schools. 
More  study  of  such  cases  is  greatly  to  be  desired  both  for 
science  and  for  pedagogy.  While  some  of  these  children  are 
exceptionally  bright  in  other  things  in  a  way  that  suggests 


THE    PEDAGOGY    OF    MUSIC  iii 

compensation,  it  would  seem  that  most  have  either  some 
auditory,  vocal,  motor,  or  mental  defect,  or  that  they  are  espe- 
cially prone  to  be  deficient  in  sentiment,  heart,  and  especially 
in  the  capacities  of  keen  social  sympathy  with  others.  Some 
of  them  having  heard  very  little  music,  and  never  having  sung, 
simply  lack  training,  but  there  is  no  ground  for  asserting  that 
no  child  would  sing  if  it  had  never  heard  others  do  so,  nor  is 
there  for  denying  this  statement.  Many  asseverations  of  en- 
thusiastic teachers  to  the  contrary,  there  are  no  doubt  con- 
genital musical  diverts  and  even  imbeciles.  Would  savage 
music  appeal  to  such  children,  and  are  they  simply  lingering 
in  some  paleopsychic  stage?  Is  the  slight  progress  they  are 
capable  of  making  worth  what  it  costs?  Above  all,  we  would 
like  to  know  what  other  psychic  effects  usually  accompany  this, 
and  what  are  its  most  flagrant  causes.  It  is  high  time  that 
psychogenetic  researches  were  made  in  this  very  promising 
field. 

Precocious  gifts  are  more  common.  Juvenile  prodigies, 
though  rare,  are  better  known.  Here,  again,  a  few  samples 
from  our  returns  must  suffice.  A  girl  of  ten  months  beat  time 
accurately  to  even  complex  music ;  another  in  her  second  year 
learned  to  sing  many  tunes  and  "  had  sung  before  she  could 
talk  " ;  another  of  two  years  chimed  in  with  a  shrill,  piping 
voice  to  most  of  the  music  habitually  heard  in  the  family ;  an- 
other had  sung  several  tunes  correctly  alone,  and  often  tried  to 
pick  them  out  on  the  piano,  and  would  listen  long  and  intently 
as  to  nothing  else ;  a  boy  of  four  who  had  had  no  instruction 
knew  and  hummed  some  two  score  pieces  of  very  different 
character ;  a  girl  of  five  sang  nearly  all  she  said,  and  kept  it  up 
at  her  play  about  all  day,  answering  questions  in  crude  rhyth- 
mic songs  of  her  own  improvisation,  her  converse  with  her 
doll  and  other  children  being  mostly  in  song,  etc.  Some  be- 
fore school  age  acquire  considerable  familiarity  with  the  scale 
and  various  tempos,  and  even  sing  solfcggi(^s  and  have  a 
highly  developed  sense  of  rhythm,  this  being  more  stressed 
with  boys  than  with  girls;  but  musical  precocity  in  general  is 
more  common  with  girls.  Here,  again,  we  need  more  detailed 
knowledge.  H  such  children  were  usually  found  where  much 
music  is  heard,  this  fact  would  suggest  that  all  children  may 
have  musical  capacities  more  early  than  is  generally  thought, 


112  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

which  might  be  developed  sooner,  and  more  than  we  now  sup- 
pose. Such  gifts  are  often  not  hereditary,  but  appear  Hke 
sports,  as  in  the  case  of  mathematical  genius.  Again,  such  early 
talents  very  often  die  out,  and  in  at  least  some  of  our  cases 
the  interest  in  music  is  practically  lost  at  or  even  before  ma- 
turity, and  far  more  often  there  is  so  little  depth  of  soul  that 
taste  for  good  music  cannot  be  cultivated.  Child  compositions 
are  usually  trivial  or  affected.  Where  rhythm  is  prematurely 
and  disproportionately  developed  it  seems  ominous  for  the 
growth  of  music  sense  above  the  order  of  march  or  clog  dance. 
Still,  as  a  class,  these  cases  need  and  most  often  repay  such 
efforts,  although  many  infant  singers  fail  to  develop  voice,  and 
some  of  them  seem  without  the  basis  of  temperament.  Read- 
ing music,  especially  for  the  piano,  seems  from  our  returns  to 
be  almost  a  gift  with  some,  while  others  attain  even  moderate 
proficiency  with  great  difficulty.  Thus,  in  fine,  every  stage  of 
life  seems  strewn  with  wreckage,  and  if  there  is  early  promise 
it  is  often  succeeded  by  early  decay.  Musical  ability  is  a  deli- 
cate and  uncertain  plant,  the  blossom  of  which  by  no  means 
insures  fruitage.  Possibly  its  culture  was  for  long  prehistoric 
periods  a  specialty,  till  it  became,  Weismann  to  the  contrary, 
notwithstanding,  more  or  less  hereditary,  and  in  subsequent 
mixtures  of  blood  its  determinants,  having  attained  a  certain 
cohesion  among  themselves,  were  crossed  by  some  hyper- 
Mendelian  law  in  the  psychic  sphere  which  has  few  analogies 
in  psychic  experience.  But  speculation  here  is  worthless  in  the 
present  stage  of  psychogenesis. 

Nearly  all  my  own  answers  to  syllabi  agree  that  weather  has 
much  effect  on  voice.  Hot  and  damp  days  cause  children  to  sag, 
lose  pitch,  sing  flat,  perhaps  relax  toward  monotone,  and  lessen 
vocal  control.  Bad  ventilation  has  the  same  tendency.  Con- 
versely, in  bright  weather  and  pure  air,  voices  are  less  languid, 
more  resonant,  truer,  stronger,  and  even  reading  music  is  dis- 
tinctly improved.  Teachers  often  say  that  everything  affects 
the  voice,  and  even  urge  that,  to  be  effective,  every  condition 
must  be  favorable,  or  singing  lessons  should  be  omitted.  Nat- 
urally, to  sing  goes  with  joy;  therefore,  a  buoyant  tone  should 
be  another  precondition.  Too  much  praise  or  blame,  especially 
if  individual,  have  bad  effects  which  are  detailed  at  length. 
Children  should  not  be  made  early  conscious  of  the  quality  of 


THE    PEDAGOGY    OF    MUSIC  113 

their  voices  by  criticism.  This  is  specially  dangerous  at  the 
period  of  change  of  voice.  Notes  grow  more  chesty  and  less 
throaty.  Girls  often  lose  a  few  high  notes  for  a  time  and 
regain  them  later,  requiring  from  one  to  four  years  for  perfect 
readjustment.  They  often  think  themselves  hoarse  by  spells, 
especially  on  cool  days.  Some  alternate  repeatedly  from  the 
old  to  the  new  register,  and  some  drop  suddenly.  Boys'  voices 
are  best  about  a  year  before  the  change.  Choir  boys  often  sing 
through  the  entire  change,  dropping  from  soprano  to  mezzo, 
then  alto,  then  baritone.  Although  girls'  voices  change  less, 
the  change  is  quite  as  critical  and  some  think  more  so  than  for 
boys.  The  majority  of  our  respondents  think  most  children 
can  sing  through  mutation  with  the  same  impunity  with  which 
they  can  talk,  and  that  the  only  danger  lies  in  maladjustment 
of  pitch  to  the  stages  of  alteration  in  larynx  and  chest.  A  very 
few  opine  that  this  is  a  nascent  period  when  new  vocal  powers 
are  given,  which  are  lost  if  not  utilized  betimes,  so  that  this 
period  is  a  judicious  teacher's  great  opportunity,  which,  if 
neglected,  involves  grave  loss  of  possibilities  never  so  open  be- 
fore or  after. 

Singing  is  at  first  best  learned  by  imitation,  and  a  good 
collection  of  songs  by  rote  should  always  come  before  all  exer- 
cises, scales,  and  intervals,  and  long  before  note  reading,  which 
is  a  purely  intellectual  process.  Children  get  a  better  grasp  of 
pitch,  rhythm,  etc.,  if  melody  is  not  distracted  and  harassed 
by  notes.  Notation  comes  very  late  in  the  history  of  the  race, 
and  it  is  just  as  monstrous  to  teach  it  before  the  child  knows 
many  songs  by  heart  as  it  would  be  to  teach  reading  before 
the  child  had  a  vocabulary  or  could  speak.  These,  the  analo- 
gies between  alexia  and  agraphia  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
various  forms  of  amusia  on  the  other,  bring  out  in  the  clear- 
est way  when  these  defects  are  analyzed.' 

'  Wallaschek,  Richard  (Die  Bedeutung  der  Aphasie  fiir  die  Musikvorstellung. 
In  Zcilschrift  fiir  Psychologic  und  Physiologic  dcr  Sinncsnrgano.  ScpUinlKr,  i.S<)3, 
vol.  6,  pp.  8-32)  has  shown  that  there  is  a  marked  paralliiism  iK-twcin  certain 
groups  of  aphasia  and  certain  forms  of  defect  in  musical  exj)ressi().i  and  that  some  of 
the  same  defects  that  exist  between  writing  and  drawing,  are  found  Intween  sjx-ech 
and  singing.  Under  expression,  for  instance,  there  is  motor  or  s<ns»)ry  amusia  or 
paramusia  and  musical  amnesia.  There  is  also  musical  agraphia  and  paragraphia, 
alexia  and  jKiralcxia,  amimia  and  paramimia.  In  the  field  of  iiuisic  al  n-presentation 
we  have  to  choose  l)etwccn  three  theories:  first,  cither  the  localization  view  of  Hitzig; 
9 


114  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

By  persistently  ignoring  this  principle,  most  American 
teachers  and  texts  commit  a  crime  against  the  child's  musical 
nature  which  is  responsible  for  most  of  the  difficulties  they 
encounter,  and  which  creates  defects,  dulls  interest,  violates 
gifts,  and  handicaps  work  to  a  degree  which,  could  it  be  meas- 
ured in  financial  or  other  terms  of  economic  waste,  would  be 
appalling.  The  American  pedagogue  finds  it  vastly  more  con- 
genial to  his,  or  usually  her,  instincts  to  grind  the  children  on 
musical  script  than  to  teach  them  to  sing  by  the  ear,  and  so 
he  does  it  insistently.  If  a  visitor  seeks  to  learn  how  the  class 
has  advanced  in  its  musical  education,  the  book  is  at  once  called 
for,  and  its  grade,  or  the  number  of  pages  or  exercises  learned, 
or  the  facility  at  sight-reading  of  a  new  piece  is  brought  forth 
as  a  test  of  proficiency,  and  the  quality  of  the  music,  which 
should  be  the  very  first,  is  usually  the  very  last,  consideration. 
Most  school  children  will  never  learn  to  read  and  will  rarely 
sing  a  note  after  their  schooling  is  ended,  but  if  they  are  left 

second,  we  may  separate  the  intellectual  and  emotional  expression,  or  third,  the  entire 
process  of  expression  may  be  analyzed  into  its  components.  These  views,  of  course, 
do  not  entirely  exclude  each  other.  When  it  comes  to  analyzing  musical  con- 
cepts we  have  great  diversity  of  view,  which  is  because  we  have  to  raise  the 
question  of  the  origin  of  music  which  is  usually  placed  where  its  own  concepts  find 
their  strongest  association.  Then  some  have  derived  music  from  speech,  others 
from  dramatic  action,  still  others  from  dancing,  others  from  the  feelings,  especially 
love.  Wallaschek  derives  it  from  the  tact  or  time  sense,  which  is  closely  con- 
nected with  rhythmic  movement.  The  correctness  of  this  derivation,  he  thinks, 
will  not  be  darkened  or  disputed  by  those  cases  of  aphasia  in  which  it  appears 
that  the  musical  conception  and  production  are  composed  of  different  elements. 

Brazier,  Dr.  (Du  Trouble  des  Facultes  Musicales  dans  I'Aphasie.  In  Revue 
Philosophique,  October,  1892,  vol.  34,  pp.  337-368)  concludes  that  the  theory  of 
three  images  can  be  applied  to  music.  Auditive  images  predominate  more  even  than 
they  do  in  speech,  but  motor  images  are  more  prominent  than  visual.  The  Knob- 
lauch view  that  there  were  nine  types  of  amusia  has  not  held  good.  But  there  is 
a  useful  distinction  between  total  or  complex  and  simple  amusia;  the  latter  may 
be  grouped  into  those  of  reception,  of  transmission  and  of  expression,  corresponding 
in  the  auditive  field  to  tonal  deafness,  in  the  visual  to  notal  blindness  or  musical 
alexia.  The  other  forms  are  due  to  the  loss  of  motor  images,  whether  of  singing 
(vocal  motor  amusia)  or  in  playing  instruments  (Wallaschek's  amimia)  or  instru- 
mental motor  amusia.  This  scheme  seems  simple  and  with  a  broad  clinical  basis. 
Amusia  may  be  a  corollary  of  aphasia  or  be  an  independent  species  of  it. 

G.  Marinesco  (Des  Amusies.  In  La  Semaine  Medicale,  Februarys  1905,  vol.  25, 
pp.  49-52)  gives  an  interesting  sketch  of  aphasia  in  its  relations  to  amusia,  showing 
that  for  some  decades  alienists  have  noted  the  close  relation  between  speech  and 
music,  the  latter  being  a  language  "more  energetic  than  speech."  The  acquisi- 
tion of  musical  and  verbal  images  and  their  reproduction  where  disaggregation 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    MUSIC  ii5 

with  a  goodly  list  of  well-chosen  songs  which  they  love,  their 
sentiments  would  be  developed  and  their  taste  formed,  and 
most  would  love  music  ever  after,  even  if  they  had  never 
learned  to  read  a  note.  Of  the  few  teachers  who  accept  this 
principle,  there  is  no  agreement  as  to  the  proper  time  for 
learning  the  notes,  the  ages  proposed  ranging  all  the  way  from 
seven  to  fifteen.  The  custom  of  having  grade  teachers  give 
instruction  in  lower  classes,  and  perhaps  the  fact  that  we  as 
a  people  are  not  musically  gifted,  and  the  traditional  neglect 
of  what  the  plain  and  simple  knowledge  of  child  nature  should 
teach,  are  largely  responsible  for  the  above  unpedagogic  prac- 
tices. 

Tonic  Sol-Fa  has  contributed  little  of  value  save  the  mov- 
able do,  but  adds  distractions  galore.  Like  other  novelties,  it 
brought  enthusiasm  to  teachers  in  the  days  of  Kullen  and  his 
immediate  successors.  But  the  analogies  with  colors  and  hand 
movements  were  utterly  arbitrary,  and  the  diagrams  appealed 

occurs  follows  very  similar  lines.  As  Balle  puts  it,  "auditory  musical  representa- 
tions are  usually  organized  before  those  that  are  verbal  and  the  latter  disappear 
first.  That  is,  verbal  deafness  in  disintegration  normally  comes  before  musical 
deafness."  "Music  thus  presents  a  very  close  resemblance  to  language.  Both 
are  symbolic  representations.  The  note  or  musical  symbol  can  Ije  mentally  sung, 
heard,  read,  written,  just  as  the  letter  which  is  the  phonic  symbol  or  as  the  word 
can  be  pronounced,  heard,  read,  written.  The  cerebral  process  is  absolutely 
the  same  and  the  similitude  in  education  is  identical  just  as  for  words." 

Still  more  interesting  is  the  contribution  of  Pick,  A.  (Zur  Analyse  der  Elemente 
der  Amusic  und  dercn  Vorkommen  im  Rahmen  aphasischer  Stbrungcn.  In 
Monatsschrift  fiir  Psychiatric  und  Neurologic,  1905,  vol.  18,  pp.  S7-<)6),  who 
urges  that  for  a  complete  understanding  of  aphasia  and  to  fully  rubricize  all  the 
now  well-recorded  cases  it  is  essential  to  consider  those  in  whic  h  the  music  sense 
is  cither  congenitally  lacking  or  has  fceen  lost.  This  writer  gives  a  brief  review 
of  the  cases  of  amusia  described  since  1870.  Tones  consist  of  (juality  or  pitch, 
intensity,  timbre  and  rhythm,  and  it  would  ap|)ear  from  this  literature  that  any  of 
these  may  be  lacking.  Even  Billroth  in  his  oft-quoted  "Wer  ist  musiknlisch?" 
described  cases  of  innate  absence  of  the  sense  of  rhythm  in  normal  individuals, 
while  it  is  sometimes  very  highly  developed  in  low-grade  idiots.  There  are  cer- 
tainly well-recorded  cases  in  which  all  understanding  of  rhythm  and  melodic  inter- 
vals, together  with  all  motor  expression  of  musical  feeling,  seem  lacking.  There 
are  lx)th  deafness  and  aphasia  of  intonation.  In  some  cases  this  seems  connected 
with  a.symbolism.  The  facts,  however,  arc  so  complex,  and  the  clinical  material 
at  best  limited  to  so  few  dozen  cases,  that  it  is  impossible  as  yet  to  give  a  complete 
theory  of  the  romplirations  here  involved.  It  is  certain  that  amusia  and  aphasia 
arc  very  closely  related  and  analogous.  To  develop  the  schema  in  which  lx)th 
belong  it  is  therefore  plain,  as  Pick  concludes,  that  we  must  "  pass  from  the  hitherto 
one-sidedly  emphasized  intellectual  to  the  adjacent  domains  of  feeling  and  will." 


Ii6  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

« 

only  to  the  intellect.  The  less  allotrious  matter  carried  along 
the  better,  and  every  appeal  to  the  eye  save  for  rhythm  diverts 
from  ear  and  voice  culture,  in  which  all  should  focus.  Tonic 
Sol-Fa  may  really  help  experienced  singers,  but  the  principle 
often  invoked,  "  if  the  staff  is  hard,  put  it  early,"  is  here  at 
least  perverse.  Signs  and  symbols  and  all  that  mentalizes 
should  be  everywhere  subordinated  to  w-hat  emotionalizes. 

(i)  Rhythm  is  the  first  aspect  which  is  so  emphasized  in 
all  the  primitive  music,  which  seems  to  have  a  tum-tum  origin. 
Its  chief  features  are  repetitions  and  cadences.  It  is  a  system 
of  beats,  accents,  stresses,  time  keepings,  and  markings,  step- 
ping, patting,  tapping,  striking,  measuring  arsis  and  thesis 
with  the  feet.  At  first  there  is  little  content  and  little  variety, 
but  repetition  exasperatingly  monotonous  to  cultured  nerves. 
A  savage  band  is  made  up  of  drums,  at  first  untuned,  and,  if 
there  is  a  choir,  it  repeats  phrases  and  words  endlessly.  The 
child  W'hich  begins  by  rhythmically  striking  one  object  with 
another,  or  by  keeping  tab  of  sequent  impressions  on  tallies  in 
a  series  of  light  objects  when  getting  ready  to  count,  hums 
or  verbalizes  a  measure  over  and  over,  perhaps  slowly  evolving 
and  intricating  it,  or  learns  to  beat  time,  march,  sway,  or 
gesture,  has  begun  to  ascend  the  long  way  by  w^hich  the  race 
began  its  musical  development.  This  stage  needs  great  and 
early  emphasis;  although,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  become 
excessive  and  neurotic,  as  is  seen  in  the  counters  and  beaters. 
Poetry  is  older  than  prose,  and  everything  possible  in  the 
kindergarten  and  primary  grade  should  take  rhythmic  charac- 
ter. Rhythm  in  any  form  most  children  love,  and  clapping, 
patting  juba,  marching,  moving  in  tempo,  metronomes,  swings, 
rocking  chairs  and  horses,  are  favorites,  although  some  in  our 
data  are  made  ill  by  the  three  latter.  Lack  of  rhythm  often 
goes  with  general  disorderliness,  and  excessive  love  of  it  often 
makes  children  prefer  catchy,  trashy  music  if  it  has  a  strong 
lilt  and  swing  so  they  can  pat,  nod,  beat  time,  etc.,  as  the  gal- 
lery in  the  theater  is  so  prone  to  do.  Cradle  and  leg  time, 
arsis,  thesis,  the  tendency  to  count  in  groups,  to  hum  with 
steps,  etc.,  all  tend  to  articulate  and  cadence  the  very  soul.  The 
weaker  the  rhythm  sense  is,  the  more  massive  and  fundamental 
are  the  movements  necessary  to  learn  it.  It  has  social  value 
in  strengthening  unison  of  movements  and,   from  these,   of 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    MUSIC  117 

sentiment.  It  is  difficult  for  children  to  feel  music  without 
movement,  so  that  dancing  is  a  needful  auxiliary  at  a  certain 
stage  of  musical  education,  which  some  are  now  coming  to 
think  is  dwarfed  without  it.  Even  musicians  often  hear  music 
with  at  least  periodic  motor  innervations,  and  the  conductor's 
baton  may  help  to  understand  new  and  difficult  passages,  for 
all  music  is  pervaded  by  temporal  pulsations  which  both  punc- 
tuate and  articulate  its  elements  into  higher  and  more  com- 
pound unities.  A  cardinal  trait  of  music  at  this  stage  is,  there- 
fore, that  it  should  be  marchy,  dancy,  motor,  for  it  must  get 
into  the  muscles.  While  the  child  may  hear  other  music,  it 
should  attend  chiefly  to  this  kind.  To  exercise  together  with- 
out music  is  the  ghastly  mistake  of  Swedish  gymnastics,  which 
sins  against  both  motor  and  musical  development.  Music 
should  go  with  steps  and  steps  with  music.  The  young  person 
who  cannot  dance  is  crippled  in  his  appreciation  of  a  certain 
large  class  of  music.  There  are  those  who  interpret  almost 
all  kinds  of  music  in  terms  of  motion,  supplementing  real  by 
imaginary  movements.  The  sentence,  sense  of  power,  all 
periodicity  and  style  in  speech,  grace,  ease  and  freedom,  which 
are  the  poetry  of  movement,  find  here  their  chief  source.  To 
sit  still  and  listen  to  stirring  music  stunts  a  musical  develop- 
ment in  a  young  child  in  its  very  bud,  for  it  feels  music  chiefly 
as  incitement  to  action.  There  have  been  great  and  precocious 
musical  geniuses  that  have  shot  up  through  this  stage  so  rap- 
idly that  it  was  little  seen,  but  it  is  integral  in  normal  musical 
development,  and  the  born  teacher  of  the  art  best  knows  how 
to  draw  upon  and  utilize  this  immense  reservoir  of  motor 
tendency. 

The  child  best  worth  educating  musically  responds  deeply 
and  early,  even  if  unconsciously,  to  the  sound  in  nature,  the 
first  music  master  of  the  race.  The  soughing  of  the  wind 
through  the  pines  stands  out  uniquely  in  its  effect  upon  the 
sensitive  soul  of  childhood.  It  may  even  cause  tears  without 
consciousness,  for  it  plays  ujjon  the  very  organism.  It  is  felt 
in  most  as  sadness  and  restlessness,  while  the  susurrus  of  the 
breezes  among  the  leaves  of  deciduous  trees  is  early  pleasing 
and  exhilarating.  The  wind  is  a  bandmaster,  loved  or  feared, 
according  to  the  loudness  with  which  his  orchestra  plays.  The 
rattle  of  the  hail,  the  drip  and  patter  of  rain,  the  silent  fall  of 


ii8  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

snow,  the  roil  of  distant  and  the  crash  of  near  thunder,  the 
ripple  of  streamlets,  the  roar  of  waterfalls,  the  beating  of 
waves,  and  all  the  many  voices  of  water  are  great  music  teach- 
ers. Then,  too,  there  are  the  symphonies  of  bees,  crickets,  and 
even  mosquitoes ;  the  humming,  droning,  booming  buzz  of 
larger  insects,  the  piping  of  tree  toads  and  frogs,  even  the 
cries  of  the  fcles  ct  canes,  each  has  a  varied  tone  language  of 
its  own  to  the  young;  the  bleating  of  sheep,  the  lowing  of 
herds  which  give  pastoral  moods,  the  call  of  the  wild  and  the 
cry  of  the  squirrel  kind.  Above  all,  the  birds,  the  lonely  hoot 
of  the  owl,  the  despairing  cry  of  the  loon,  the  caw  of  crow 
and  daw,  the  scream  of  the  eagle  and  hawk,  the  clapper  of  the 
heron,  the  cooing  of  the  doves  and  the  song  of  the  warblers, 
which  one  observer  says  never  sing  but  only  laugh  out 
of  a  heart  overflowing  with  joy;  each  one  of  these  sounds 
and  many  more  carry  with  them  a  whole  stage  setting  of  psychic 
moods;  and  these  the  tone  poet  simply  must  feel  abundantly, 
often,  and  early.  Living  creatures  do  not  talk  to  each  other, 
for  they  have  no  vocabulary  of  words,  but  their  utterances  are 
all  of  them  either  love  calls,  warnings,  or  danger  signals,  and 
are  more  musical  than  verbal.  Some  are  lullabies,  others 
madrigals,  or  philippics,  or  notes  of  defiance,  or  murmurs  of 
parents  to  their  young,  and  some  are  voices  of  the  day,  others 
of  the  night  or  storm.  They  suggest  the  heath,  the  prairie, 
moorland,  thicket,  mountain,  meadow,  brook,  the  spring  when 
the  migrators  come,  and  the  fall  when  they  go.  These  are  the 
things  that  have  played  on  the  soul  through  all  the  immemorial 
past,  have  controlled  its  moods,  and  have  still  a  strange  power 
to  call  up  imagery.  Snatches  of  these  field  antiphones  are, 
what  many  careful  experiments  show,  that  which  music  sug- 
gests to  all  responsive  souls.  It  is  these  influences  that  should 
not  be  evicted  by  the  music-stultifying  noises  of  the  city,  which 
cause  it  to  focus  on  erotic,  even  decadently  erotic,  themes.  So 
far  as  music  is  an  interpreter  of  nature,  the  child  must  have 
heard,  felt,  varied  influences,  or  else  musical  training  leaves 
him  untouched,  because  there  is  nothing  in  his  soul  to  inter- 
pret. 

(2)  Song  is  story,  and  to  the  child  is  the  nourishing  root 
of  all  musical  culture.  A  musician  who  never  sang,  or  at  least 
hummed  to  himself  or  herself,  can  never  possibly  feel  the  full 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    MUSIC  119 

power  of  instrumentation.  He  must  at  least  hear  song  in  his 
throat,  or  something  vital  is  lacking.  Song,  too,  must  have  a 
burden,  and  programless  music  comes  later.  The  true  bard 
is  inspired  by  his  theme  and  pours  forth  unpremeditated  song, 
l>ecause  he  is  drunk  with  his  theme,  and  therefore  carries  his 
hearers  away.  So  the  great  lyrists,  from  the  restored  Apollo 
to  the  gypsy  fiddler  of  to-day  in  his  own  habitat,  play  music 
that  to  them  is  crammed  full  of  meaning  and  content  deeper 
than  words,  and  with  which  they  weave  their  spell.  Hence, 
too,  the  musician  must  know  the  great  tales  of  time  and  men, 
and  be  inspired  by  them,  so  that  he  can  learn  to  let  himself  go 
with  abandon ;  and  his  powers  of  sympathy  must  be  utterly 
untainted  by  criticism.  Story  roots  of  love  stronger  than 
death,  a  vengeance  where  man  is  a  powerless  agent  of  the 
fates,  of  piety  and  devotion  that  immolate  self  for  something 
greater  than  self — among  these  the  composer  finds  his  Muse. 
Hence,  the  pupil  must  know  and  feel  the  great  mythopoeic 
cycles,  especially  those  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  Homer  and  the 
dramatists ;  and  the  Germans,  the  Saxon  Arthuriad,  the  Niebe- 
lungen  and  the  rest.  All  such  legendary  and  heroic  lore  can- 
not be  properly  told  save  in  poetry  and  music,  to  which  they 
incline  and  inspire  the  soul.  Literature  of  this  class  should 
be  the  handmaiden  of  art.  Above  all.  Biblical  literature  and 
the  religious  instinct  should  be  cultivated.  So,  too,  patriotism 
and  the  flag,  the  great  historic  events  and  golden  deeds  of 
virtue,  home,  and  native  land  are  the  great  themes  in  all  the 
consensus  of  children's  preferences  in  music.  Love  comes 
later,  and  comedy  and  parody  are  still  later  and  far  less. 

(3)  As  to  instrumentation,  wind  instruments  that  are 
blown  come  nearest  the  heart.  The  pipe  was  first  after  the 
drum,  and  to  play  these  is  singing  with  a  proxy  larynx,  while 
breath  and  feeling  are  ordinarily  very  closely  akin.  Thus  the 
young,  even  near  the  age  of  self-consciousness  and  emotional 
repressions,  can  still  express  a  sentiment  naturally.  School 
bands  are  as  hygienic  for  the  feelings  as  they  are  for  the  lungs, 
and  from  Plato  down  all  have  praised  martial  strains  of  this 
kind  for  youth.  Rut  in  soul  fulness,  we  must  agree  with 
Gardiner  '  that  the  violin  stands  first,  hard  and  late  as  it  arose. 

'The  Music  of  Nature.     London,  Longmans,  1843,  505  p. 


I20.  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

Each  string  has  its  distinct  character.  It  requires  and  trains 
great  accuracy  of  ear  and  touch,  and  bowing  is  the  best  ex- 
pression of  music  which  the  hand  can  make.  Perhaps  in  noth- 
ing does  it  come  so  near  being  the  direct  organ  of  the  heart. 
How  the  Hungarian  fiddler  in  his  home  and  native  music  hugs 
passionately,  caresses  his  instrument,  and  gets,  as  Paganini 
did,  the  most  sympathetic  and  tumultuous  response  that  ever 
instrumentalist  won  from  a  crowd !  The  violin  is  the  school 
instrument  in  Germany,  where  most  is  done  in  music.  The 
ready-made  notes  and  tempered  scale  of  the  piano  and  organ 
are  farther  off,  and  their  technic  is  far  less  expressive  of  the 
musical  theme.  The  mandolin  is  a  tasteful  decoration  of  bric- 
a-brac  for  a  sophomore's  room,  but  is  it  quite  virile  for  the 
American  man?  Is  not  even  the  banjo  less  ladylike  and 
evirating?  I  do  not  know;  why  do  not  musicians  tell  us? 
Alas !  the  pedagogy  of  music  is  yet  in  its  diaper  and  swaddling- 
clothes  stage  till  we  know  more  of  the  psychology  of  the  chief 
classes  of  instruments,  each  of  which  does  different  things  to 
the  soul. 

Keep  the  technic  duly  subordinated — pray,  ponder  this. 
Let  me  repeat:  Is^it  not  just  as  absurd  to  teach  the  children 
notes  and  the  scale  before  they  have  learned  a  repertory  of 
songs  by  rote  as  it  would  be  to  teach  reading  before  the  child 
learns  to  talk?  The  prime  end  of  musical  education  in  the 
grades  is  to  train  the  sentiments,  to  make  children  feel  nature, 
religion,  country,  home,  duty,  and  all  the  rest,  to  guarantee 
sanity  of  heart  out  of  which  are  the  issues  of  life.  To  this, 
technic  and  everything  else  should  be  subordinated.  Again, 
teachers  must  sing  to  the  children  if  they  can  only  croon  or 
intone  poetry,  I  would  have  a  pianola  in  every  high  school 
and  college  with  a  few  score  of  well-chosen  selections.  In 
pubescence,  when  the  life  of  sentiment  awakens,  probably 
music  has  its  most  potent  influences  in  stirring  and  ex- 
panding the  soul.  Much  school  music  is  now  chosen  merely 
with  reference  to  some  scheme  of  pedagogic,  systematic  pro- 
gression. Much  method  here  is  a  sin  against  the  holy  ghost 
of  music  itself.  Every  tune  introduced  should  have  a  moral 
and  aesthetic  justification,  and  should  be  admitted  to  the  school 
canon  only  after  careful  deliberation  and  for  good  and  suffi- 
cient reasons.    And  then,  and  only  then,  will  music  be  rescued 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   MUSIC  121 

from  its  present  abject  degradation,  and  given  its  rightful, 
commendable  place  in  the  curriculum  as  the  trainer  of  the  feel- 
ings. 

I  wish  music  teachers  would  read  a  little  more,  and  see 
their  work  in  the  larger  light  now  dawning.  They  might  at 
least  know  Pilo,  Gardiner,  Wallace,^  Wallaschek,-  possibly 
even  Gurney,^  not  to  add  Darwin,  Spencer,  and  Weismann's 
dilettante  and  hypersubtle  theorization.  Then  there  is  the'sec- 
ond  part  of  Helmholtz's  masterpiece,  "  On  the  Sensations  of 
Tone,"  which  gives  the  history  of  music  on  a  scientific  basis. 
There  are  other  works  by  Ritter,  Paine,  Henderson,  Nerlich, 
Kostlin,  Bartholomew,  and  Stumpf,  who  thinks  that  purity  of 
music  and  race  type  come  together,  that  the  male  voice  was  once 
very  high,  and  that  woman  first  began  to  sing,  and  that  use 
or  practicality  has  caused  the  development  of  music.  Then 
there  are  the  simpler  results  of  the  study  of  children's  choices, 
from  discriminations  of  pitch,  from  their  range  of  ear,  their 
sense  of  timbre,  the  imagery  that  music  excites,  which  Gilman 
and  Downey  have  studied,  and  even  the  responses  of  infants 
to  music;  while  Dr.  Theodate  Smith  is  preparing  a  work  on 
the  psychic  reactions  to  sound  by  infants  and  children,  and 
fuller  studies  are  being  made  upon  imitation  and  upon  musical 
imagery  by  Weld. 

Under  Mr.  David  Manners  as  conductor,  one  can  now  hear 
classical  music  at  the  Musical  School  Settlement  on  New  York's  East 
Side,  where  three  hundred  and  seventy-five  children  from  six  to 
seventeen  study  under  a  faculty  of  thirty-two  members  and  actually 
support  the  school.  They  fall  into  three  classes :  those  who  love 
music,  those  who  find  themselves  in  it  and  may  become  players  in 
orchestras,  and  those  who  have  ability  to  become  teachers.  The 
school  is  not  open  to  the  criticism  sometimes  made  of  trying  to  train 
musicians  out  of  tinkers  and  tailors,  nor  does  it  cause  dissatisfac- 
tion or  interfere  with  school.  For  a  fuller  account  see  Tapper,  T., 
Music  and  East  Side  Children,  The  Outlook,  1908,  Vol.  88,  pp. 
428-432. 

Interesting  and  curious  was  the  production  of  the  "  Messiah  " 
during  Holy  Week  at  Landsborg,  Kansas,  a  Swedish  town  of  two 
thousand.     Twenty-five  years   ago   Bethany   College   here   instituted 

'  Wallace,  Wm.,  Thrt-sholfl  of  Music.  Macm.,  I^ornlon,  1008,  267  p. 
*  Wallaschek,  R.,  Primitive  Music.  Longmans,  London,  i8<)3,  326  p. 
»Gurney,  Edmund,  The  Power  of  Sound.     Smith,  London,  1880,  559  p. 


122  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

this  performance,  which  has  become  an  annual  festival  which  some 
fifteen  thousand  people  have  heard.  There  is  a  chorus  of  six  hundred 
voices  and  sixty  pieces.     In  one  case  three  generations  sang. 

There  are  two  ideals  toward  one  of  which  most  conductors  tend. 
The  one  exhorts  to  beauty  of  musical  structure,  loves  composition  as 
fluent  architecture,  makes  the  texture  of  the  counterpoint  or  bril- 
liancy and  mellowness  of  instrumentation  or  melodies  works  of  fine 
art.  The  other  exhorts  to  intensity  of  emotional  effects,  gets  as 
near  as  possible  to  pure  feeling,  conveys  mood,  seeks  expressiveness, 
sways  the  soul  by  strains  of  invigorating  dance  musiq,  thrills  one 
with  rhythm,  brings  great  climaxes.  Each  extreme  has  its  defects 
and  its  virtues.     Naturally  Boston  inclines  toward  the  former. 

Dr.  L.  Wiillner,  whose  singing  has  been  received  almost  as  enthu- 
siastically as  Paderewski's  playing,  has  a  voice  of  poor  quality  but  is 
a  marvelous  musical  and  dramatic  interpreter  of  poetry — the  poetry 
of  thought  and  music  and  words,  and  the  music  of  poetry.  He  has 
certainly  remarkable  intellectual  power  of  emotional  insight  and 
dramatic  expression  so  that  his  voice  is  in  some  sense  a  subordinate 
accessory.     His  art  is  very  versatile. 

Arthur  Whiting,  a  well-known  pianist,  composer,  and  teacher  in 
New  York,  believing  that  colleges  do  not  recognize  music  enough, 
some  two  years  ago  formed  a  plan  to  enable  undergraduates  to  hear 
•eight  concert  lectures  on  classical  and  chamber  music.  Attendance 
was  to  be  voluntary  and  without  charge,  but  expenses  were  de- 
frayed by  collections  from  the  alumni.  These  were  well  attended, 
and  considerable  information,  biography,  history,  as  well  as  explana- 
tions of  thematic  and  poetic  construction,  were  brought  out.  Never- 
theless, the  real  success  of  the  enterprise  is  doubtful,  though  it  seems 
to  have  great  possibilities. 

We  persistently  and  with  stupidity  ineffable  assume  that 
musical  education  is  all  in  performance ;  and  every  child  up 
the  grades  is  mechanically  trained  in  proportion  as  it  can  sing 
or  play.  A  critic  or  even  a  hearer  of  music  is  always  asked 
if  he  can  play  or  sing;  and,  if  not,  his  opinion  is  thought  of 
little  account.  Now  this  is  just  as  absurd  as  it  would  be  to 
estimate  the  child's  literary  knowledge  by  what  it  can  actually 
read  itself.  Over  against  all  this  lies  the  far  wider  domain 
of  musical  appreciation.  Children  should,  in  fact,  hear  vastly 
more  music  than  they  sing  or  play;  and  this  should  be  a 
prominent,  if  not  a  predominant,  part  of  their  musical  train- 
ing. They  must  listen  and  be  taught  how  to  do  so  by  abun- 
dant experience  and  practice.  Everyone  available  should  sing 
or  play  to  them,  and  any  and  all  the  mechanical  players  should 
be  laid  under  tribute.     Even  the  hand  organ  has  its  genuine 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   MUSIC  123 

uses,  and  is  a  real  aid  at  a  certain  stage  of  musical  develop- 
ment. There  is  now  no  excuse  for  the  narrow,  dense  ignorance 
and  inexperience  of  so  many  young  people  in  this  field.  In 
every  schoolroom  where  there  is  a  piano  there  should  be  a 
pianola  of  some  kind,  and  a  very  carefully  selected  collection 
of  rolls,  graded  to  each  age  and  stage,  and  often  used  not  only 
in  connection  with  opening  and  closing  exercises,  but  as  the 
basis  of  education  in  musical  appreciation,  so  that  musical 
ideas,  phrases,  motives,  composition,  and  analysis  should  be 
progressively  known.  More  of  this,  even  at  the  expense  of 
a  good  deal  of  the  time  now  given  to  note  work,  would  bring 
far  more  rapid  progress;  and,  what  is  more  essential,  would 
secure  more  of  the  chief  ends  of  musical  education  in  the  way 
of  developed  taste  and  experience.  It  is  amazing,  in  view  of 
the  great  value  of  results  that  lie  so  near  at  hand,  that  I  have 
never  seen  or,  after  some  inquiry,  even  heard  of  a  single  school 
that  has  not  only  added  the  pianola  as  an  essential  annex,  but 
developed  a  strictly  graded  pedagogic  course  in  musical  hear- 
ing. One  reason,  I  am  told,  is  that  the  ladies  who  usually  play 
the  piano  are  jealous  of  the  larger  role  of  pieces  and  better 
execution  of  these  machines.  Here,  again,  the  rights  and  needs 
of  children  suffer  from  the  ignorance  or  caprice  of  adults. 

(a)  As  to  musical  instruction  in  college,  musical  culture  in 
its  large  sense  is  the  most  liberal  and  humanistic  of  all  studies, 
perhaps  not  even  excepting  literature.  From  this,  it  follows 
that  there  is  no  subject  in  the  high-school  and  college  cur- 
riculum that  should  be  taken  by  so  large  a  proportion  of  stu- 
dents. About  every  young  man  and  maiden  should  do  some- 
thing with  it.  Why  do  I  make  so  large  a  claim  ?  Because,  as 
we  have  seen,  music  is  the  language  of  the  feelings,  sentiments, 
and  emotions ;  or,  in  a  word,  of  the  heart,  and  l:)ecause  these 
constitute  three  fourths  of  life,  and  all  of  them  come  into 
being  or  are  immensely  reenforced  and  augmented  during 
adolescence,  which  covers  all  the  early  teens  and  the  very  early 
twenties.  Speech  is  the  lang^iage  of  the  intellect,  but  the  feel- 
ings are  older  and  vaster.  The  intellect  is  chiefly  a  product 
of  the  individual  development,  but  the  heart  represents  the 
race,  and  is  hence  more  generic  and  basal.  We  Americans  are 
more  prone  than  any  other  race  to  he  defective,  itnirrmutlicli, 
more  liable  to  have  our  emotional  life  grow  sterile  and  desic- 


124  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

cated.  Thus  it  is  the  function  of  music  to  restore,  deepen,  en- 
large, intensify,  and  express.  Our  very  language  is  prone  to 
be  deficient  in  action,  feeling,  and  speech  music.  If  we  have 
feelings  in  youth,  we  soon  come  to  deem  it  good  form  to  con- 
ceal them,  even  if  they  are  good  and  wholesome,  although 
thought  itself,  if  not  painted  and  toned  by  sentiment,  is  arid 
and  dead.  Music  makes  the  world  tinglingly  real  again.  It 
restores  the  soul  to  meanings,  and  the  great  tone  poets  who 
organized  the  sound  world  take  us  out  of  our  narrowness  into 
the  universe  and  make  us  feel  the  cosmic  powers.  They  add 
new  and  brighter  colors  to  the  palette  of  experience,  and  not 
only  discipline  the  heart,  but  free  us  from  false,  frivolous,  lan- 
guishing, bad  feelings,  create  new  blends  of  them,  and  give 
us  the  more  and  fuller  life  for  which  we  pant  and  of  which 
our  nerves  are  scant.  Music,  like  God,  sees  only  the  heart. 
It  is  a  language  of  quintessences,  the  only  perfect  philosophy 
and  true  metaphysics.  Modern  sesthetics  shows  us  in  great 
detail  how  national  and  historic  music  reflects  the  soul  of  races 
and  ages — Greek,  Italian,  Teutonic,  French,  etc.  In  such 
phrases,  which  represent  the  essential  viewpointsof  Schopen- 
hauer, Helmholtz,  Gurney,  Haweis,  Stumpf,  Ha^ch,  and  oth- 
ers, how  can  we  avoid  drawing  the  momentous  practical  infer- 
ence that  more  and  better  musical  culture  is  one  of  the  chief 
needs  of  our  age  and  land?  So  my  first  plea  is  for  more  ex- 
tensive musical  culture,  that  almost  all  our  academic  youth 
learn  to  sing  or  play  or,  at  the  very  least,  be  taught  to  know, 
love,  and  more  intelligently  appreciate  good  music  in  order  to 
normalize  and  regenerate  their  emotional  life,  to  make  them 
feel  country  and  nature  in  all  their  aspects,  religion  in  all  its 
breadth  and  depth,  to  sanify  and  idealize  the  affections  and 
even  war  if,  in  the  course  of  human  events,  it  should  become 
necessary  to  risk  life  for  country.  Relegate  to  the  second  or 
third  place  the  technic  that  all  teachers  tend  to  push  to  the 
foreground,  and  constitute  yourselves  guardians  responsible 
for  the  vigor  and  healthfulness  of  the  emotional  nature  of  the 
young.  Break  the  iron  law  which  tends  in  the  kindergarten 
to  put  Tonic  Sol-Fa  in  the  primary  school,  intellectual  instruc- 
tion in  staff,  scales,  and  intervals  in  the  grades,  and  the  theory 
of  harmony,  counterpoint,  orchestration,  and  instrumentation 
in  the  college  and  university  ahead  of  wide  acquaintance  and 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   MUSIC  125 

intimate  heart-to-heart  appreciation  of  a  generous  repertory 
of  masterpieces.  A  German  fifth-grade  class  I  once  visited 
could  sing  for  me  any  one  of  fifty  chorals  or  folk  songs  by 
heart,  but  could  not  yet  read  notes.  How  many  of  the  great 
composers  knew  the  intricate  theories  of  super-  and  subdom- 
inant  triads,  dispersed  harmony,  inverted  suspensions,  or  could 
have  passed  one  of  our  college  examinations  in  Spalding  and 
Chadwick?  Too  much  technic  and  too  little  early  familiar 
acquaintance  with  music  is  the  letter  that  kills.  I  know  a 
high  school  that  had  a  vigorous  choral  union  of  seventy  in- 
struments and  voices  combined,  and  which  gave  half  a  dozen 
concerts  during  the  year  of,  on  the  whole,  very  good  music, 
until  a  university  hard  by  heard  of  it  and  decided  to  give 
credit  for  entrance  examinations  in  musical  theory,  with  the 
result  that  the  half  dozen  leaders  withdrew  from  the  union 
(which  soon  collapsed  without  them)  to  study  theory  from 
books. 

Some  American  colleges  encourage  banjo  and  mandolin 
clubs,  composed  usually  of  two  or  three  crude  amateurs  who 
can  snap  off  a  few  popular  catchy  and  perhaps  even  "  kicky  " 
airs  and  a  larger  number  of  accompanists  who  can  just  play 
a  few  chords,  and  permit  these  organizations  to  give  concerts 
and  perhaps  to  make  tours,  occasionally  contributing  to  their 
expenses.  Often  glee  clubs  are  organized  on  a  similar  low 
level,  who  croon  college  ditties  of  the  Polly-wolly-doodle  or 
Mary's  Little  Lamb  order.  The  fatuity  and  utter  banality  of 
the  words  and  the  cheapness  of  the  music  of  the  lowest  strata 
of  college  songs  soberly  sung  by  rows  of  stalwart  college  bar- 
barians ifi  evening  dress  often  suggest  down-right  infantil- 
ism. The  fun  of  it  all  has  a  pathetic  tang  for  every  musical 
connoisseur,  and  when  such  clubs  essay  serious  sentiments, 
these  are  all  so  crude  and  lush  that  such  performances  consti- 
tute a  unique  badge  of  our  national  (academic)  inferiority  in 
music.  Institutions  often  think  such  concert  tours  valuable  as 
recruiting  agencies  because  callow  youth  of  the  home  town 
admire  and  wonder,  and  are  made  converts  thereby  to  the 
higher  education.  In  the  programmes  there  arc  usually  sam- 
ples of  ragtime  and  of  the  latest,  lightest  comic  operas  to 
which  admiring  audiences  beat  time.  Perhaps  all  this  has  its 
place,  a  touch  of  it  but  not  too  much  of  it,  but  it  belongs  to 


126  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

the  fraternity  house  or  to  the  athletic  field  beside  the  college 
yell,  or  lower  down  in  the  high  school.  Its  elemental  rhyth- 
mic quality  is  basal  as  the  tom-tom  and  has  its  place,  but,  like 
much  of  our  school  music,  it  belongs  to  younger  grades.  At 
any  rate,  most  of  the  best  agree  that  this  is  a  musical  level 
which  the  college  should  now  ignore  and  which  a  department 
of  music  ought  to  discourage,  because  overcultivation  of  this 
stage  is  very  easy,  and,  where  it  occurs,  it  tends  strongly  to 
arrest  the  higher  development  of  musical  ability.  I  am  con- 
vinced that  many  American  collegians  are  now  suffering  ar- 
rest from  the  hypertrophy  of  this  crudest  and  most  rudimentary 
form  of  musical  propensity — and  among  these  I  must,  alas, 
count  myself. 

(b)  As  to  musical  training  for  intending  school  teachers, 
great  disparity  is  found  even  in  colleges  which  have  both  a 
normal  and  a  musical  department.  Some,  even  of  the  latter, 
make  no  provision  for  teaching  music  to  the  pedagogues  that 
seek  degrees  from  them,  professors  holding  such  work  to  be 
too  elementary  for  them  to  engage  in,  or  having  no  time  for  it. 
In  most  such  institutions  something,  but  too  little,  is  done,  and 
that  little  is  almost  always  ill  adapted  to  its  purpose.  In  these 
respects  we  have  very  much  to  learn  from  the  higher  normal 
courses  of  Europe,  and  especially  those  of  Germany,  where  the 
theory  and  practice  are  roughly  as  follows :  The  very  first  con- 
sideration is  the  sentiment  taught  or  reenforced  by  the  music, 
for  here  lies  its  chief  educational  effect,  since  it  can  train  the 
heart  as  nothing  else  can  do.  The  theme  of  most  vocal  school 
music  is  either  nature,  home,  country,  or  religion,  and  its  value 
is  chiefly  measured  according  to  how  much  it  can  do  in 
strengthening  loyalty  to  these.  Next  comes  the  quality  of  the 
music  itself,  and  of  course  all  the  works  of  the  great  composers 
are  ransacked  to  compile  from  them  a  curriculum  or  canon  of 
the  best.  The  teachers  must  know  several  scores  of  selections, 
both  words  and  music,  by  heart,  and  be  able  to  teach  them  by 
rote.  Folk  songs  and  ballads  lead,  and  next  come  simple  but 
often  exquisite  selections  or  simplifications  from  the  great 
composers.  Every  academic  student  preparing  to  teach  in 
Germany  must  not  only  know  a  large  repertory  of  such  songs, 
but  must  play  the  violin  or  piano,  the  former  usually  preferred, 
especially  for  rural  schools.     Nearly  every  teacher  can  and 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   MUSIC  127 

must  sing  a  little,  gnd  most  of  the  music  in  the  folk  schools 
is  taught  by  regular  teachers,  and  not  by  specialists.  To  fit 
young  men  and  especially  young  women  for  such  work  is  the 
chief  function  of  this  academic  department.  Everything  tech- 
nical is  subordinated  to  the  spirit,  and  so  music  is  felt. 
Here,  on  the  other  hand,  colleges  train  prospective  teachers, 
if  at  all,  chiefly  in  technic  and  note  reading,  with  only  the 
slightest  regard  to  the  quality  of  the  music  or  the  subject  of 
the  song,  while  the  publishers  sell  annually  tons  of  juvenile 
music  books  chiefly  devoted  to  method,  to  analysis  of  processes 
that  never  ought  to  be  analyzed,  at  least  for  novices,  inane 
exercises,  cheap  songs,  many  of  them  manufactured  by  the 
authors  of  the  text  or  selected  almost  at  random  with  little 
regard  to  educational  values,  but  often  for  purely  methodic 
reasons.  Just  as  bad  English  teaching  almost  invites  slang, 
so  unpedagogic  musical  instruction  invites  the  cheap  kind  of 
music  which  is  often  a  positive  obsession  that  haunts  adoles- 
cents in  high  school  and  college,  and  leads  to  the  kind  of  mu- 
sical emporium  I  discredited  above,  for  musical  jingles  that 
cannot  be  banished  from  the  mind,  but  cling  like  burrs,  are 
products  of  bad  musical  education.  The  college  training  of 
future  teachers  here  needs  two  things :  first,  far  more  special 
attention  and  time;  and,  second,  a  radical  reconstruction  of 
both  its  matter  and  methods. 

(c)  Another  function  of  collegiate  instruction  in  music  is 
to  cultivate  in  those  who  will  never  become  performers  good 
taste  and  the  power  to  appreciate  and  understand  music.  This 
is  often  a  specified  function,  and  is  one  of  the  purposes  of  col- 
lege concerts,  recitals,  festivals,  and  of  some  of  the  courses, 
especially  those  in  the  history  of  music  and  the  biographies  of 
musicians.  As  a  branch  of  all  truly  liberal  culture,  music  can 
now  claim  a  high  and  ever  higher  place.  Modern  psychology 
and  aesthetics  can  hardly  lay  too  great  stress  upon  the  educa- 
tional value  of  familiarity  with  the  great  works  of  the  l^cst 
masters  for  young  men  and  maidens.  The  coming  theory  is 
in  outline,  that  good  music  faintly  awakens  the  echoes  of  the 
ancestral  experience  of  the  race  and  causes  the  psychic  traces 
and  rudiments  of  what  our  remote  forebears  did.  suffered, 
feared,  loved,  and  fought  for  to  reverberate  again  in  our  souls. 
The  great  comi)oser  wakens  these  dying  echoes,  and  causes 


128  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

the  soul  to  crepitate  witli  prehistoric  reminiscences  that  can 
never  surge  up  into  the  full  light  of  consciousness.  As  the 
murmur  of  the  ocean  shell  held  to  the  ear,  poets  tell  us,  relates 
the  secrets  of  the  deep,  so  music  puts  us  en  rapport  with  the 
lives  of  the  great  cloud  of  witnesses  who  constitute  our  an- 
cestors back  and  down  we  know  not  how  far,  perhaps  to  the 
earliest  forms  of  mammalian  or  even  vertebrate  life,  or  even 
lower.  We  remember  the  phases  of  the  past  estate  of  the  race 
from  which  we  sprang,  and  rehearse,  if  ever  so  faintly,  its 
joys,  sorrows,  victories,  defeats,  longings,  exultations,  and  de- 
pressions. The  soul  becomes  a  resonance  chamber  for  any  and 
every,  however  slightly  revivable,  reminiscence,  not  of  a  preex- 
istent  state  in  Plato's  sense,  but  of  the  experience  we  inherited 
from  the  long  line  of  our  predecessors  who  have  bequeathed 
to  us  each  the  quintessential  residue  of  their  life  history  which 
music  puts  into  our  possession.  Thus,  by  a  sympathetic  ap- 
preciation of  music,  the  soul  revisits  the  dim  racial  past,  com- 
munes with  the  countless  generations  gone  before,  participates 
again  in  their  fate,  pastimes,  and  fortunes,  so  that  in  a  sense 
they  awaken  and  rehearse  their  story  in  our  souls. 

But  music  is  not  only  recessional,  but  processional.  It,  is 
inspired  with  the  ennobling  push  up  toward  the  superman  that 
is  to  be.  We  expand  the  narrow  limits  of  our  own  individual- 
ity toward  the  dimensions  of  the  race  and  the  past  and  the 
future.  This  interpretation  of  musical  feeling  is  not  sentiment, 
but  scientific  evolution  in  this  field,  or,  more  specifically, 
genetic  psychology.  The  golden  age  of  musical  appreciation 
is  the  decade  of  adolescence,  say  from  fourteen  to  twenty-four, 
when  the  soul  needs  and  responds  quickest  to  all  the  vastating 
influence  which  is  great  and  beneficent  beyond  anything  in 
literature  or  any  other  art. 

Thus  I  urge  that  the  greatest  of  all  the  functions  of  college 
music  is  to  acquaint  not  only  special  but  general  students  with 
a  wide  range  of  the  best  music,  to  insure  not  only  acquaintance 
with,  but  infection  by,  the  great  masterpieces  of  all  lands  and 
ages.  In  many  colleges,  students  can  hear  but  pitifully  little 
good  music,  and  in  all  I  believe  that  the  function  of  listening 
and  the  detailed  acquaintance  that  can  come  only  by  repetition 
should  be  a  much  greater  function  than  it  now  is.  The  ^olian, 
the  Cecilian,  and  Pianola  should  not  be  despised,  and  should 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   MUSIC  129 

be  vastly  more  utilized  in  every  school  of  music.  These  me- 
chanical players  are  admirably  adapted  for  the  analysis  of 
musical  structures,  for  the  study  of  style,  movements,  composi- 
tion, and  the  vast  and  rapidly  growing  body  of  music  now 
playable  from  paper  rolls  is  a  godsend  to  everyone  interested 
in  music,  whether  lay  or  professional.  These  enable  the  stu- 
dent to  widen  the  horizon  of  his  knowledge,  cultivate  taste, 
discrimination,  intelligence,  and  thus  enhance  his  appreciation 
of  the  performance  of  great  artists,  orchestras,  and  choruses. 

(d)  Again,  I  plead  for  a  richer  and  better  course  in  the 
history  of  music  from  its  beginning  on  to  the  present.  It  is  a 
wonderful  and  magnificent  story,  beginning  with  the  crude, 
incessantly  repeated,  rhythmic  phrase  on  to  homophonic  mel- 
ody, moving  about  independently  of  the  key  tone  like  the  old 
tragic  chorus,  the  intonations  of  the  church,  and  the  Italian 
declamatory  recitative.  The  polyphony  of  the  tenth  and  sub- 
sequent centuries  wove  independent  melodies  together,  assign- 
ing little  value  to  harmony  as  such.  The  evolution  of  the 
major  scale  from  the  old  Ionic  and  of  the  minor  out  of  the 
other  five  antique  scales,  the  development  of  the  progress  from 
madrigal  to  opera,  in  tragic  chorus  to  oratorio,  the  evolution 
of  pure  instrumentation,  are  all  fascinating  chapters.  In  such 
a  historic  course,  which  should  be  thorough  and  prolonged,  all 
should  center  about  actual  music,  and  the  standard  productions 
of  the  great  masters  should  be  incessantly  repeated  and  the 
story  of  their  lives  known.  Such  illustrations  are  now  prac- 
tical in  these  days  of  mechanical  players.  This  historical  course 
should  not  only  be  broad  and  thorough,  but  the  point  of  de- 
parture for  every  other  department.  Growth  responds  to 
growth  and  genius  provokes  response  and  appeals  profoundly 
to  the  faculties  of  youth,  for  progress  is  inspiration  to  the 
young.  Every  great  composer  of  the  past  should  have  his 
week  or  month  of  daily  work,  and  every  great  era  its  full  term 
of  exclusive  study,  and  everything  should  be  practical,  with  a 
rich  historic  perspective.  Thus  something  or  some  one  will 
make  a  special  appeal  to  every  student,  even  those  who  cannot 
appreciate  the  latest  and  most  evolved  styles  and  writers. 

The  first  accessory  to  musical  education  should  be  mythol- 
ogy, especially  the  great  mythopoeic  themes  and  cycles  that 
have  made  so  many  of  the  great  dramas  and  epics  of  the 
10 


ISO  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

world's  literature,  and  which  constitute  the  grand  ethnic  Bibles 
of  races.  The  traditional  material  which  has  vitality  enough 
to  survive  for  centuries  and  millennia  by  oral  transmission  and 
without  the  aid  of  print — this  should  be  the  constant  study  of 
every  candidate  for  a  musical  career  or  degree.  Wagner  has 
only  suggested  to  the  world  the  possibilities  of  musical  inspira- 
tion that  lie  in  this  field.  He  revealed  and  revived  the  Ger- 
many of  pre-Christian  centuries,  the  legends  of  the  youth  of 
the  world,  the  heroes  that  loom  up  from  the  dim  past,  the  great 
men  of  earth,  its  prophets — the  story  of  the  Golden  Fleece,  of 
Orestes,  Agamemnon,  Prometheus,  Iphigenia,  Electra,  Ajax, 
^neas  and  Dido,  Siegfried,  Brunhilde,  Parsifal,  Arthur, 
Beowulf,  illusions  that  center  about  a  Golden  Age,  about  na- 
tional redeemers — ^material  that  historians  reject,  but  that  folk- 
loreists  and  students  of  the  origins  of  literature  reveal.  These 
are  what  the  musician  ought  to  know  who  wants  to  be  a 
prophet  and  apostle  of  the  folk  soul  and  make  its  creations  live 
again.  He  should  know  and  feel  the  most  characteristic  and 
dramatic  situations,  and  find  in  these  the  source  of  his  inspira- 
tion, setting  the  grandest  editions  of  the  race  to  music  before 
attempting  its  purer  forms.  Thus,  when  it  comes  to  composi- 
tion, the  novice  should  not  forget  that  the  individual  repeats 
the  history  of  the  race,  and  first  essay  some  simple  melodies 
to  sweeten  and  enforce  old  moving  folk  poems,  for  these  an- 
cient mythic  themes  speak  to  the  heart  of  love,  piety,  heroism, 
and  it  is  in  the  interpretation  of  these  that  creativeness  is  most 
favored.  Let  the  young  composer,  then,  first  essay  songs 
richly  set  in  gesture,  posture,  pantomime  and  declamatory  ac- 
tion, for  out  of  this  music  arose,  for  tone  and  tune  once  only 
reenforced  words  and  meanings.  Thus,  I  urge  that  infection 
with  much  of  this  legendary  myth  material  should  always  be 
prescribed,  and  that  the  department  of  literature  represented 
by  the  old  epic,  and  the  great  stories  of  ancient  and  modern 
drama  should  be  the  first  outside  course  insisted  upon  for  the 
young  musician,  long  before  acoustics  of  tone,  and  even  before 
the  French,  Italian,  and  German  languages,  which,  of  course, 
every  graduate  of  a  musical  course  should  know. 

(e)  One  very  pertinent  point  is  the  effect  of  music  upon 
the  nervous  poise  and  control  of  those  who  love  it.  The  very 
neurons  may  be  musically  famished  or  overfed,  may  be  tense 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   MUSIC  131 

and  overwrought  with  incessant  occupation  with  tedious  and 
famiHar  elements,  or  thrilled  and  exhilarated  by  great  com- 
positions, old  or  new.  Between  all  these  extremes  there  lies 
always  a  normal  optimum  which  every  musician  should  find 
and  live  as  near  to  as  possible,  equidistant  from  every  kind  of 
excess  or  defect.  Music  that  calms  should  thus  offset  that 
which  excites;  that  which  rests  should  relieve  us  from  that 
which  fatigues.  Nearly  all  musicians  have  here  a  unique 
problem  with  their  own  nervous  system  which  only  they  can 
solve,  but  which  must  be  solved  as  seriously  as  one  seeks  sal- 
vation. When  we  meet  broken-down  musicians  in  nervine 
hospitals  and  asylums,  this  problem  has  passed  beyond  their 
own  power  to  solve  alone,  but  there  was  a  time  when  nearly 
all  could  probably  have  saved  themselves  by  proper  insight 
and  regimen.  I  am  convinced  that  it  is  not  music  itself,  but 
the  fact  that  the  kind  of  music  most  habitual  is  a  misfit  which 
is  chiefly  responsible  for  the  neurotic  and  neurasthenic  states 
into  which  musicians,  especially  lady  teachers  of  it,  sometimes 
fall,  and  that  music  has  a  great,  as  yet  unexploited,  power  to 
heal  its  own  wounds.*     In  proof  of  this  there  are  clinical 

'  Dr.  Ireland  (Dr.  William  W.  Ireland.  On  Affections  of  the  Musical  Faculty 
in  Cerebral  Diseases.  In  Journal  of  Mental  Science,  July,  1894,  vol,  40,  pp.  354- 
367)  long  ago  concluded  that  the  brain  seat  of  musical  feeling  must  not  be  limited  to 
that  involved  in  sensory  or  motor  aphasia  but  that  it  must  be  located  at  least  in 
both  hemispheres  and  could  be  extinguished  only  by  lesions  on  both  sides.  He 
finds  that  the  musical  faculty  may  survive  after  very  extensive  disturbances  of  the 
cortex. 

Legge  (Richard  Legge,  M.D.  Music  and  the  Musical  Faculty  in  Insanity. 
In  Journal  of  Mental  Science,  July,  1894,  vol.  40,  pp.  368-375)  finds  that  in  acute 
mania  there  is  great  incoherence  of  musical  as  of  other  thought.  In  chninic  mania 
musical  j)crformance  is  without  expression  and  everything  is  played  not  as  the  music 
requires,  but  as  the  feelings  of  the  moment  prompt.  Melancholiacs  arc  not  pleased 
at  music.  In  general  paralysis  there  is  great  exaggeration  of  musical  as  of  other 
powers.  In  dementia  the  a;sthetic  feelings  decay  early  and  |x;rhaps  first.  In 
partial  manias  the  musical  faculty  may  be  unimpaired.  Only  in  general  paralysis 
is  the  musical  ear  affected. 

J.  C.  Hadden  (Music  as  a  Medicine.  Music,  1895-96,  vol.  9,  p.  350)  reviews  the 
studies  of  the  therapeutic  value  of  music  and  finds  them  rather  confusing.  Some  think 
the  action  is  chiefly  on  the  heart,  others  on  the  respiration;  one  thinks  the  acti>'ity 
of  the  skin  is  affected,  antl  others  have  thought  it  had  wondrous  (harm  in  causing 
fatigue  to  vanish.  Dr.  Warthain,  of  Vienna,  hypnotized  |)alients  and  dosed  them 
with  music.  In  (heir  normal  state  they  were  unaffected,  but  by  suggestion  all  the 
vital  functions  iK-came  greatly  modified.  The  ameliorative  jKjwer  of  music  was 
well  understood  in  classical  antiquity  and  indeed  it  has  always  iK-en  used  to  soothe 


132  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

records  that  could  be  cited.  Of  course  we  have  yet  much  to 
learn  of  the  sanifying  and  unsanifying  effects  of  music,  but 
the  fact  already  stands  out  that  the  highly  unstable  age  of 
youth  is  most  of  all  sympathetic  to  both  these  influences. 
Again,  even  purely  instrumental  music  not  only  has  hygienic, 
but  moral  quality  and  influence,  and  this,  although  not  defin- 
able, is  easily  detectible.     It  stimulates  the  highest  as  well  as 

the  sickly.  And  down  through  the  middle  ages  various  physicians  developed 
cures  and  ascribed  magic  powers  to  it.  It  is  particularly  effective  in  driving  away 
the  devil.  Perhaps  it  may  have  diagnostic  value.  There  are  some  who  ascribe 
their  cure  from  insanity  to  it.  It  may  have  a  medical  future.  P.  Pastnor  (Music 
as  Medicine.  Music,  1898-99,  vol.  15,  p.  650)  teUs  of  the  great  efficacy  of  singing  in 
hospitals  and  pleads  that  this  influence  be  more  generally  recognized.  Of  course 
much  depends  upon  the  temperament  of  the  patient,  but  the  question  why  more 
is  not  done  to  bring  out  the  therapeutic  effect  of  music  is  hard  to  answer.  E.  A. 
Smith  (The  Influence  of  Music  upon  Life  and  Health.  Music,  1895,  vol.  8,  p.  361) 
gives  concrete  cases  to  illustrate  the  same  theme.  Very  interesting  are  the  ex- 
periments of  Patrici  (Music  and  the  Cerebral  Circulation  of  Man),  who  found  a 
patient  whose  brain  was  so  exposed  that  he  could  test  the  influence  of  different 
kinds  of  music  upon  his  cerebral  circulation.  The  depressing  or  exalting  character 
of  music  upon  this  boy  did  not  correspond  to  the  abasement  or  elevation  of  the 
plethysmograph  curve.  All  music  calls  blood  to  the  brain.  H.  W.  Stratton  (The 
Keynote  in  Therapeutics.  Arena,  1901,  vol.  25,  p.  287)  thinks  that  certain  kinds  of 
music  are  positively  nutritive,  and  that  for  those  who  have  musical  capacity  its  cura- 
tive value  is  far  greater  than  is  now  suspected.  But  there  must  be  careful  adjustment. 
Allegro  is  not  suitable  to  high-strung  nerves,  nor  is  adagio  to  lethargy.  Always 
we  should  closely  adhere  to  the  keynote  for  this  dominating  center,  this  great  factor 
in  convalescence.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  total  cure.  The  major  triad  bright- 
ens, promotes  cheerfulness,  while  the  minor  triad  depresses  and  should  be  used 
but  very  little,  and  its  harmonies  should  be  kept  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  key- 
note. 

Naecke  (Les  Distractions,  Visiles,  Theatre,  Excursions,  Musique,  etc.,  Dans 
le  Traitement  des  Alienes.  Reviewed  in  Revue  dc  Psychiatrie,  1897,  pp.  259-269) 
makes  an  earnest  plea  for  diversion  for  the  insane  as  well  as  nonrestraint,  which 
he  deems  the  chief  factor  in  moral  reeducation.  Patients  must  not  be  treated  as 
children  but  as  adults,  with  responsibility,  dignity  and,  indeed,  with  great  tact. 
Ver}'  often  a  diversion  of  their  energy  and  attention  as  long  continued  is  the  most 
curative  possible  method. 

E.  Lamprecht  (Die  Taubstummen  und  die  Musik.  In  Zeitschrift  fiir  padago- 
gische  Psychologic,  Pathologie  und  Hygiene,  Sept.,  1908,  vol.  10,  pp.  84-91)  advo- 
cates the  exposure  of  deaf-mutes,  especially  those  who  are  only  partially  deaf,  to 
music,  even  when  the  response  is  chiefly  in  the  form  of  sensations  of  vibrations 
in  stomach,  hips,  feet,  or  sensation  of  cold  in  the  forehead  or  other  of  the  many 
sensory  reactions  noticed  in  the  deaf.  The  reflex  tonicities  music  causes  are  of 
pedagogic  value.  Sometimes  the  deaf  take  peculiar  and  very  likely  affected  pleas- 
ure in  coming  into  contact  with  music.  Certainly  rhythm  can  be  greatly  helped 
thereby. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   MUSIC  I33 

the  lowest  powers.  It  may  evoke  morbid  languishing  pathet- 
icism  that  chills  the  joy  and  zest  of  life  to  insipidity,  or  it  may 
make  the  world  seem  more  real  and  life  more  earnest,  and 
endow  every  experience  with  enhanced  worth.  The  moods 
which  it  commands  constitute,  after  all,  its  deepest  and  most 
lasting  value  or  harm,  and  especially  to  the  plastic  and  sus- 
ceptible stage  of  student  life.  Only  those  who  have  systemat- 
ically collected  confidential  youthful  confessions  of  how  music 
brightens  and  exhilarates  or  depresses  and  dismalizes  life  can 
realize  its  usually  but  little  suspected  potency  over  the  soul  in 
its  struggles  up  to  full  maturity,  and  it  is  chiefly  this  I  would 
have  preferred  to  spend  my  time  in  trying  to  bring  home  to 
the  better  knowledge  of  college  professors  of  music,  who  have 
doubtless  all  felt,  but  probably  forgotten,  as  we  are  all  so 
wont  to  do,  most  of  those  very  deep  but  essentially  transient 
and  lapsible  experiences  of  the  seething  age  of  the  later  teens 
and  early  twenties. 

(/)  Finally,  music  gives  us  confidence  in,  and  respect  for, 
human  nature.  One  reason  why  we  enjoy  a  great  work  of 
musical  art  is  that  we  realize  that  it  was  produced  more  or  less 
spontaneously  out  of  the  depths  of  the  soul  of  a  genius,  and 
hence  we  .feel  that  his  soul  is  sound  to  the  core,  and,  since  the 
power  to  appreciate  is  a  small  degree  of  precisely  the  same 
kind  of  psychic  energy  that  creates,  we  feel  that  we,  too.  are 
sane  and  healthful  in  the  depths  of  our  being.  Helmholtz  is 
right  that  the  art  connoisseur  abhors  chiefly  the  signs  of  con- 
scious and  deliberate  purpose  to  produce  this  or  that  result  by 
this  or  that  means,  and  wants  instead  purely  instinctive  irre- 
sistible spontaneity.  The  composer  must  sing  as  the  bird  sings, 
because  he  cannot  help  it.  Music  is  thus  a  message  to  the  ordi- 
nary and  more  superficial  conscious  and  self-conscious  life 
from  the  profounder  regions  of  the  unconscious  and  instinctive 
substrata  of  the  human  nature  which  constitutes  nine  tenths  of 
life — a  message  which  says  "  all  down  here  is  beautiful,  har- 
monious, and  there  is  overflowing  superfluity  of  vitality." 
This  is  the  voice  of  the  race  saying  to  the  individual,  "You 
may  be  sore  Ijestead,  weak,  vacillating,  ignorant,  in  doubt ; 
but,  if  your  bark  sinks,  it  is  to  a  larger  sea,  and  there  are  ever- 
lasting arms  beneath  in  your  own  soul."  It  is  the  heart  out 
of  which  are  the  issues  of  life,  irrigating,  refreshing,  inform- 


134  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ing,  reenforcing  the  dusty,  moiling  intellect.  Hence,  it  follows 
that  there  may  be  too  much  and  too  incessant  analysis,  crit- 
icism, and  self-consciousness  in  our  academic  curricula.  We 
can  no  more  create  musical  genius  here  than  in  other  fields. 
All  greatness  is  more  born  than  made,  but  more  easily  than  in 
other  fields  we  can  destroy  the  buds  of  genius  by  superfoetation 
of  precept,  mere  erudition  and  theory.  Musical  appreciation 
evokes  musical  creativeness,  and  it  is  music  itself,  much  of  it 
and  often,  that  inspires,  and  not  the  discussion  and  technic 
that  teachers  tend  to  lapse  toward  almost  in  direct  proportion 
to  their  inability  to  create  or  even  to  execute.  As  in  all  other 
branches,  here  there  are  teachers  of  music  who  are  musically 
sterile  and  exhausted,  and  is  it  not  they  who  are  more  often 
the  methodasters  prone  to  magnify  pet  devices?  It  is  at  any 
rate  when  theory  is  predominant  that  music  tends  to  become 
manufactured  and  made  by  rule,  perhaps  correct,  but  content- 
less  and  dead,  with  no  message  or  gospel  from  the  oversoul 
to  us. 

Thus,  in  a  day  when  psychologists  are  realizing  with  one 
accord  that  the  feelings  are  far  vaster  than  the  intellect  and 
will,  and  are  more  important  for  health  and  sanity,  it  is  clear 
that  music  teachers  more  than  any  other  class  are  charged  with 
the  custody  and  responsibility  of  the  hygiene  of  the  emo- 
tional life.  Do  they  sufficiently  realize  that  music  may  en- 
feeble, corrupt,  seduce,  degrade,  let  loose  the  worst  things  in 
the  soul — that  it  may  bring  neurasthenia,  loss  of  control, 
neurotic  instability,  pollute  the  very  springs  of  life,  as  well  as 
degrade  taste  to  tawdriness  and  puerility,  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  good  music  may  almost  create  virtue  and  tune  the  heart 
to  all  that  is  good,  beautiful,  and  true,  bring  poise,  courage, 
enthusiasm,  joy  of  life,  tone  up  weakness  and  cadence  the  soul 
to  religion  and  morals?  Just  as  there  is  a  literature  so  bad 
that  one  had  far  better  go  through  life  illiterate  than  to  read, 
so  there  is  music  so  corrupting  and  neurotic  that  the  densest 
ignorance  of  this  great  art  is  better  than  knowledge  and  ac- 
quaintance with  it.  This  moral  and  hygienic  quality  of  music 
is  the  theme  on  which  I  would  like  to  dwell,  but  I  will  only 
say  in  closing  that  it  is  a  fact  now,  as  it  was  in  the  days  of 
Plato,  who  would  banish  the  Lydian  and  Ionian  musicians, 
retaining  only  the  Doric  and  Phrygian,  that  precisely  this  dis- 


THE    PEDAGOGY    OF    MUSIC  13S 

tinction  between  moral  and  immoral  music  is  perceived  just 
in  proportion  as  an  age  is  endowed  with  true  musical  gifts. 
Lack  of  these  ethical  and  educative  characteristics  is  our  pre- 
dominant national  musical  weakness,  for  the  chief  of  all  prob- 
lems in  this  field  is  the  effect  of  music  upon  the  morals  and 
the  nerves.^ 

*  See   Famsworth,  Charles   Hubert,  Education   through   Music.     New  York, 
American  Book  Co.,  1909,  208  p. 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE  RELIGIOUS   TRAINING  OF  CHILDREN   AND  THE 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL 

The  ideal  in  religious  education — Place  of  the  mother — The  concept  of 
religion  we  need  to  start  from — Critique  of  ethical  culture — The 
religion  of  the  cultivated  adult  intellect  no  guide  in  teaching  chil- 
dren— National  loss  of  contact  with  childhood — Defects  of  Sunday- 
school  and  Bible  pedagogy — The  Old  Testament  should  first  pre- 
dominate over  the  New — The  latter  is  chiefly  for  adolescence — Jesus' 
humanity  should  be  taught  before  his  divinity — Stories  should  pre- 
dominate— Grotesque  absurdity  of  certain  Sunday-school  methods 
illustrated — Use  of  non-Biblical  sources — Pedagogic  need  and  place 
of  the  higher  criticism  and  also  of  the  miraculous  elements — Needs 
of  educated  young  men  and  women  not  met — Harnack's  proposi- 
tion— The  Sunday-school  in  England — New  steps  the  church  should 
take  to  recover  its  lost  influence. 

A  COMPLETE  religious  education  on  the  recapitulatory- 
theory  would  be  to  give  each  child  a  touch  of  the  best  in  every 
religion  through  which  the  race  has  passed  from  the  lowest 
to  the  highest.  Most  great  classes  of  natural  objects  and 
phenomena  have  been  worshiped  somewhere,  some  time,  by 
some  race;  and,  if  all  the  potentialities  which  the  race  has  ever 
shown  exist  in  germ  in  every  normal  child,  why  should  we 
not,  if  we  follow  an  ideal  system,  put  him  through  a  course 
beginning  with  fetishism  and  ending  with  pantheism,  if  those 
philosophies  of  religion  are  right  which  make  these  the  alpha 
and  omega  respectively  of  religious  evolution?  Thus,  from 
reverencing  charms,  mascots,  and  hoodoos,  the  child  would 
pass  in  some  order  yet  to  be  determined  through  the  worship 
of  rocks  and  stones,  sun,  moon,  stars,  clouds,  storm,  wind, 
thunder,  fire,  sea,  streams,  trees,  flowers,  animals,  diseases, 
heroes,  ancestors,  virtues,  and  mythic  personifications  of  all 
these,  on  to  that  of  the  great  cosmos  itself.  In  fact,  the  rudi- 
ments and  buds  of  every  one  of  all  the  ancient  religions  are 
136 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        137 

found  in  the  child's  soul ;  and  they  are  developed  to  some  ex- 
tent, not  as  full-blown  cults  or  religious  finalities,  but  by  sym- 
pathy, poetry,  nature  study,  etc.,  for  these  live,  move,  and  have 
their  being  in  the  faculties  that  the  child  inherits  from  his 
remote  forebears,  to  some  of  whom,  in  his  long  line  of  descent, 
each  and  every  part  and  aspect  of  nature  was  probably  once  a 
supreme  object  of  worship.  Culture  interest  in  these  things 
is  thus  the  creation  of  the  old  religions,  and  our  jesthetic  love 
of  nature  had  its  phyletic  origins  in  superstitions  which  con- 
nected these  with  human  weal  or  woe.  Hence,  folklore  and 
myth  in  children  are  like  the  husk  or  shell  that  protects  the 
growing  kernels  from  which  the  very  bread  of  life,  science, 
literature,  art,  religion,  are  made,  and  that  falls  off  only  when 
the  grain  is  ripe. 

How  completely  each  of  these  stages  can,  or  should,  be 
caused  to  develop  in  each  child  is  primarily  a  question  of  the 
amplitude  of  its  psychic  endowment  and  the  vigor  of  its  growth 
impulse.  A  transcendent  genius  who  could  grow  mentally 
until  fourscore  years  of  age  might  perhaps  recapitulate  all 
with  more  or  less  fullness  in  the  course  of  his  own  life.  Goethe 
gives  us  some  glimpse  of  what  such  a  man  might  be  and  do. 
Max  Miiller  has  told  us  that  in  India  the  children  are  often 
crass  idolators,  busy  with  amulets  and  charms;  the  parents, 
neglecting  this,  worship  the  great  gods  that  personify  elements 
— Brahman,  Vishnu,  Siva,  and  the  rest — while  the  grand- 
father has  passed  beyond  the  adoration  of  all  objects  or  per- 
sonalities, and  found  rest  for  his  soul  in  the  infinite  and  eter- 
nal one  and  all.  A  child  might  conceivably  be  trained  in  all 
the  beliefs,  rites,  and  customs,  e.  g.,  of  Catholicism,  and  at 
first  accept  all  as  literal.  H  endowed  with  religious  genius, 
he  would  later  surely  come  to  regard  all  he  had  learned  as 
symbols,  tropes,  and  figures  of  an  all-embracing  religion  of 
humanity.  He  would  learn  that  no  creed  or  form  says  what 
it  means,  but  is  only  a  type  of  the  forever  unexpressed.  Such 
a  seer  might  in  very  deed  be  a  devotee  of  every  faith,  a  true 
initiate  into  every  cult,  the  real  worshiper  of  every  totemic 
emblem,  of  Ahriman,  Osiris,  Orpheus,  Jove,  Jehovah,  and  the 
rest;  he  might  lie  a  Confucian,  Buddhist,  Mohammedan,  Chris- 
tian, all  in  due  proportion;  and,  if  he  could  not  worship  every 
deity  at  every  shrine,  would  at  least  know  that  it  was  because 


138  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

he  had  unused  powers  or  was  incompletely  developed.  If  a 
safe,  working  majority  of  his  faculties  worship  the  truest, 
highest,  and  best  in  the  right  way,  it  would  suffice.  He  might 
adore  each  in  turn  with  abandon  according  to  the  formulae  of 
henotheism,  rhaking  each  supreme  in  succession. 

Such  would  be  the  religion  of  the  ideal  sage  or  superman 
who,  however,  alas !  has  not  yet  existed.  Life  is  too  short  and 
our  souls  too  small,  so  that  most  men  can  have  but  one  or,  at 
most,  a  few  altars;  and  devotion  to  one  or  to  a  small  group 
means  the  dethronement  if  not  the  diabolization  of  the  others. 
With  a  new  love,  the  old  too  often  turns  to  hate,  and  a  new 
affection  becomes  expulsive  of  the  old.  Religion  always  tends 
to  violate  the  principle  of  the  Aristotelian  temperance.  Its 
pristine  affirmations  are  so  emphatic  that  they  have  to  find 
expression  in  negations  and  denials.  Thus,  one  stage  discredits 
those  that  went  before,  and  we  may  be  most  intolerant  of  those 
creeds  which  we  have  but  just  discarded.  Intolerance  and  even 
persecution  and  religious  wars  may  arise  as  well  as  narrow 
orthodoxies,  which  are  sad  expressions  of  the  limitations  of 
man's  religious  nature.  Thus,  religion  is  defective  whenever 
we  forget  that  the  same  All-father  has  been  worshiped,  though 
imperfectly,  by  every  sincere  member  of  every  pagan  faith. 
Religious  pedagogy  must  accept  these  limitations  and  make 
the  best  of  them.  Although  recognizing  that  there  is  good  in 
all,  it  must  select  and  curricularize  the  best  and  neglect  the 
.rest,  content  to  do  what  it  can  with  the  remnant  of  religious 
possibilities  left  in  the  soul,  with  the  fragment  of  time  and 
the  modicum  of  teaching  ability  available.  It  should,  how- 
ever, preserve  this  larger,  wider  ken  as  an  inspiring  over- 
thought. 

For  the  infant,  the  mother,  if  not  God  Himself,  is  in  His 
place,  and  there  can  be  no  better  religion  than  this  natural 
sense  of  love  and  dependence  w^hich  is  felt  and  developed 
toward  the  mother,  turned  later  in  life  toward  the  heavenly 
parent.  Later,  the  truest  religion  that  lives  in  the  child's  soul 
is  feeling  for  the  aspects  and  objects  of  nature:  dawn,  twi- 
light, hills,  mountains,  lakes,  rivers,  heavenly  bodies,  clouds, 
rain,  sun,  dew,  flame,  heat,  wind,  trees,  animals.  Exposure 
and  attunement  to  these,  not  by  conscious  and  explicit  ex- 
hortation but  by  way  of  implication  and  suggestion,  impel  the 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING  OF   CHILDREN       i39 

child  onward  and  upward  by  the  same  way  the  race  has  as- 
cended from  nature  to  nature's  God.  More  or  less  supersti- 
tion and  animism  are  inevitable,  and  are  also  indispensable. 
Tiiese  are  the  matrix  in  which  awe,  reverence,  and  a  sense  of 
atonement  or  at-one-ment  grow.  The  child  who  has  adored 
and  has  sent  wishes  toward  the  moon  will  worship  the  unseen 
Lord  of  heaven  and  earth  better  later  for  having  done  so.  To 
have  mused  in  the  forest  and  by  the  sea  makes  it  easier  to 
draw  near  to  God.  Solitude  with  nature  invites  the  heavenly 
powers.  The  city  child,  who  lacks  all  this  first-hand  com- 
munion, develops  without  something  very  basal  in  the  edifice 
of  its  religious  life.  A  religion  of  purely  human  service  with- 
out this  element,  noble  though  it  is,  has  in  it  at  the  very  best 
a  note  of  precocity. 

In  seeking  to  solve  the  problem  of  religious  education,  we 
must  now  indicate  our  conception  of  religion.  It  is,  in  a  word, 
that  God  is  the  cosmic  order  personified,  and  religion  is  loy- 
alty to  it,  or  mythopoeically  to  Him.  The  divine  is  more  than 
the  power  that  makes  for  righteousness,  for  this  limits  it  to 
the  human  world.  It  is  also  the  power  that  makes  for  order, 
law,  and  the  possibility  of  science.  God  is  larger  than  hu- 
manity, Comte's  grand  etre.  We  must  love  and  serve  the  Uni- 
verse, to  use  the  phrase  of  the  Stoics,  as  well  as  man.  Where 
there  seems  conflict  between  the  cosmic  and  the  moral  order 
in  the  sense  of  Huxley,  it  is  because  our  religious  instinct  falls 
short  of  attaining  its  goal,  which  is  to  unify  these  into  a  larger 
whole.  To  a  true  psychology  of  religion,  no  such  discord  is 
conceivable.  When  I  gaze  up  into  the  sky  and  say  with  a 
full  heart,  "  Our  Father  who  art  in  heaven,"  I  attain  thereby 
one  of  the  chief  summits  of  purely  religious  experience,  for, 
psychologically  interpreted,  this  means  that  I  recognize  my 
filial  relation  to  the  great  one  and  all,  from  which  my  own 
being  was  derived  through  the  long  processes  of  evolution.  I 
am  a  child  by  direct  lineal  descent  from  the  solar  system,  to 
the  soul  of  which  James  and  Fechner  say  we  ought  to  limit 
our  devotion.  But  this  smalling  down  of  the  world  by  prag- 
matism limits  our  religion,  which  should  enable  us  to  expatiate 
to  a  larger  and  more  transcendent  perspective.  I  am  a  son 
of  the  sky  and  the  nebulie ;  thence  I  came,  and  into  them  T 
shall  be  resolved.     To  contemplate  them  is  navel  gazing  and 


I40  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

saying  "  Om."  All  other  origins  and  destinies  are  proximate. 
Science  also  relates  me  phyletically  with  aquatic  ancestors,  and 
my  body  and  soul  bear  many  rudiments  of  their  pedigree 
through  a  long  train  of  prehuman  forebears ;  but  my  ultimate 
source  is  the  ether  or  whatever  was  the  primordial  basis  out 
of  which  the  world  arose.  Genetic  psychology  is  even  bold 
enough  to  propose  the  hypothesis,  till  some  better  is  found, 
that  the  reason  we  love  the  unpractical  or  useless  study  of 
astronomy  is  because  it  is  an  unconscious  orientation  of  the 
soul  toward  both  its  pristine  and  also  its  ultimate  home.  Thus, 
we  respond  in  the  unfathomable  depths  of  our  being  to  the 
processes  which  drew  us  from  the  void,  and  will  return  us  to 
it  again.  Only  this  conception  makes  us  realize  that  we  are 
relatives  not  only  of  animal  and  plant  life,  but  of  rocks,  soil, 
sea,  air,  brothers  of  every  element ;  that  all  are  our  kin,  for  we 
have  the  same  parent.  Thus,  evolution,  even  in  its  haziest 
chapters,  comes  home  to  the  heart  as  a  revival  of  true  religion, 
and  reveals  and  strengthens  its  ancient  foundations  in  the  soul. 
That  is  why  we  are  prone  to  accept  the  development  theory  by 
faith  where  it  remains  still  unproven.  Poets  of  nature  have 
always  felt  this.  Moreover,  there  is  ample  space  in  every 
roomy  soul  for  this  dim  but  potent  pantheistic  sentiment,  and 
for  any  and  every  special  faith  and  creed  beside  it.  Indeed, 
this  fructifies  and  reenforces  any  or  all  of  them.  The  fetishist 
and  the  Christian  are  both  better  for  bathing  in  this  cosmic 
ocean,  which  gives  to  everything  good  in  them  a  wider  horizon, 
a  more  vital  interest,  and  an  augmentated  motivation.  In  expe- 
riencing it  we  commune  not  only  with  the  soul  of  the  race,  past 
and  present,  but  transcend  the  limitations  of  humanity,  and 
realize  that  we  are  parts  of  all  that  ever  was,  is,  or  will  be. 
The  very  reveries  of  childhood  which,  like  so  many  of  the 
deliverances  of  consciousness,  rarely  say  what  they  mean  are 
really  far  nearer  to  this  than  we  dream.  Happy  the  wise  and 
most  venerable  sage  whose  most  evolved  consciousness  has 
truly  thought  and  seen  all  that  the  child  dimly  feels  of  this 
all-encompassing  oneness  which  makes  the  world  a  true  uni- 
verse of  all  that  is  animate  and  inanimate  alike. 

It  is  this  basal  sanifying  sense  of  being  truly  at  home  in 
the  cosmos  on  which  all  religions  rest,  which  the  ethical  cul- 
turist,  in  his  zeal  to  follow  Kant  in  evicting  theological  motives 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN       141 

to  virtue,  fails  to  do  justice  to  or  to  utilize  as  he  should  for 
conduct.  He  focuses  his  first  and  chief  attention  upon  the 
nearest  social  duties  to  our  fellow  men,  and  finds  pragmatic 
sanction  for  all  these  cardinal  obligations.  This  is  well,  for 
most  such  motivations  can  be  justified  to  all  whose  intellect  is 
vigorous  and  cultured  enough  to  understand  the  need  of  moral- 
ity for  the  ordinary  conduct  of  life.  But  the  aesthetic  response 
to  nature,  as  he  sees  and  phrases  it,  is  a  faded  thing  compared 
with  the  religious  response.  His  cult  especially  fails  to  meet 
the  nature  and  needs  of  childhood  and  youth  which  must  per- 
sonify and  use  the  tropes  of  myth  when  the  soul  really  and 
vitally  acts.  The  young  must  feel  that  there  is  a  veritable 
Father  in  Heaven  with  human  attributes,  must  love  and  pray 
to  Him  as  a  divine  parent,  just  as  a  plant  must  blossom  and 
scatter  its  petals  in  order  to  bear  fruit,  or  as  the  infant  must 
feel  love  and  dependence  toward  the  mother,  as  above  de- 
scribed, who  for  the  time  stands  in  the  place  of  God,  because 
toward  her  are  directed  and  by  her  developed  all  of  those  senti- 
ments which,  when  transferred  to  a  divine  person,  constitute 
religion.  Thus,  the  best  forms  of  faith  always  change,  though 
its  essence  persists  and  increases.  All  this  is  really  only  re- 
ligious embryology,  which  is  now  taking  its  place  beside  the 
old  and  highly  articulated  morphology  of  piety,  to  which  we 
have  hitherto  been  too  exclusively  devoted.  As  the  dominant 
interest  of  the  child  is  in  the  world  of  persons,  it  naturally 
tends  to  personify  all  parts  of  and  all  things  in  the  inanimate 
world,  as  a  means  of  extending  its  zest  into  this  wider  field ; 
and,  if  this  is  forbidden  in  its  nascent  period,  not  only  the 
child's  religious  nature  but  even  its  potential  interest  in  art 
and  science  is  dwarfed.  Primitive  religion  largely  consists  in 
interpreting  and  adjusting  to  phenomena  of  inanimate  nature, 
animistically  conceived.  Thus  it  comes  that  premature  deper- 
sonalization is  like  peeling  ofif  the  bracts  before  a  bud  is  ready 
to  blossom.  Again,  instead  of  the  Hebrew  being  tlie  first  re- 
ligion to  make  for  morality,  as  we  are  sometimes  told,  every 
primitive  cult  prescribed  rites  and  forms  of  worship  as  ideal 
conduct  with  reference  to  what  was  thought  to  be  supernal 
powers  and  with  reference  to  some  end.  Ceremonious  ob- 
servances align  us  with  the  divine  wish  or  will,  placate  its 
anger,  or  win  its  favor.     Mistaken  though  many  religiously 


142  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

motivated  acts  are,  the  association  of  faith  and  conduct  is 
nevertheless  inveterate,  and  the  instinct  to  connect  them  is  so 
strong  that  it  is  wasteful  to  rupture  them  in  the  young.  Thus, 
as  the  roots  of  all  religion  are  found  in  natural  phenomena, 
interest  in  these  must  be  stressed  with  the  child.  He  should 
live  close  to  Nature,  for  he  felt  her  in  a  heart-to-heart  way 
long  before  human  society,  save  in  its  crudest  and  most  ani- 
mal relations,  was  much  developed.  Nature,  religiously  inter- 
preted, taught  him  many  cardinal  moral  relations  at  a  stage 
when  the  chief  content  of  his  soul  was  instinct,  sentiment,  and 
intuition,  and  long  before  the  dawn  of  anything  that  could  be 
called  reason.  This  is  the  time  of  the  Old  Testament  before 
the  New  was  related  to  it  somewhat  as  theologians  related  the 
Old  to  the  New  as  being  concealed  in  it  and  coming  in  full- 
ness of  time  to  reveal  it — this  is  a  genetic  statement  of  what 
the  old  forms  of  nature  worship  meant,  and  this  will  always 
be  the  Vorschule  for  religious  pedagogy. 

The  negative  attitude  of  ethical-culture  movements  toward 
the  religious  motivation  of  morality  is  part  cause  and  part 
effect  of  a  lack  of  interest  on  the  part  of  its  representatives  in 
the  recent  development  of  religious  psychology  and  of  their 
devotion  to  Kant,  whose  once  epoch-making  work  in  this  field 
has  now  little  more  than  historic  interest.  Like  Froebelism, 
Herbartianism,  and  the  few  remaining  sociological  disciples  of 
Comte's  Politique  Positive,  they  fail  to  recognize  the  fact  that 
more  detailed  studies  in  this  field  have  far  transcended  these 
ex-masters,  so  that  adjustment  and  progress  all  along  the  line 
have  become  imperative.  The  spread  of'  the  culturist  move- 
ment again  has  been  greatly  favored  by  the  laicization  of  edu- 
cation in  France,  the  separation  of  church  and  state  in  this 
country,  and  the  secularization  tendencies  everywhere.  Moral 
teachers  have  had  to  do  the  best  they  could  under  limitations, 
for  these  changes  have  made  a  field  and  need  which  the  eth- 
icists  deserve  the  greatest  praise  for  making  the  most  of. 
Their  great  mistake,  however,  has  lain  in  denying  that  re- 
ligion, in  domains  where  it  can  be  utilized,  is  a  most  potent 
aid  to  virtue,  and  also  in  failing  to  keep  abreast  of  the  scientific 
studies  of  childhood  and  youth,  which  have  shown  how  much 
more  than  was  suspected  the  souls  of  juvenile  candidates  for 
mature  humanity  are  made  up,  warp  and  woof,  of  what  is 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING  OF   CHILDREN       143 

really  religion,  although  outside  the  narrow  ecclesiastical  defi- 
nitions of  it  which  they  have  practically  accepted  from  the 
church.  It  is  this  newly  realized  wealth  and  worth  which 
should  be  cultivated  by  every,  no  matter  how  secularized,  cur- 
riculum. As  theologically  conceived  religion  constitutes  a 
perhaps  dispensable  element  in  ethical  training;  but  in  the 
vastly  broader  new  psychological  and  genetic  conception  of 
what  it  is,  and  means,  nothing  is  so  basal,  and  the  neglect  of 
nothing  so  irremediable.  Thus,  ethical  culture  as  organized  in 
the  societies  of  this  name,  enthusiastically  as  it  must  be  com- 
mended for  nearly  all  its  positive  achievements  and  endeavors, 
in  its  negative  phases  is  reactionary  and  one-sided  because  it 
persists,  against  the  better  insight  now  attainable,  in  separat- 
ing faith  and  conduct  which  God  and  nature  have  indissolubly 
joined. 

Before  stating  what  we  deem  the  fundamental  principles 
of  ethnic  religious  education,  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish 
clearly  between  the  pedagogic  and  the  scientific  point  of  view. 
The  religion  of  the  adult  cultivated  male  intellect  may  be 
roughly  characterized  somewhat  as  follows: 

(a)  The  highest  personifications  within  its  ken  are  the  best 
men  and  women  now  living.  To  personify  the  divine,  means 
to  impose  human  limitations  upon  it,  and  we  must  from  this 
point  of  view  no  longer  regard  either  objects,  groups  of  phe- 
nomena, or  the  cosmos  itself  animistically.  All  gods  are  pro- 
jections of  the  individual  or  the  racial  soul,  or  of  both.  The- 
ology is  transcendental  anthropology.  To  reason  and  science, 
the  world  and  the  powers  that  rule  it  are  dwarfed  and  dis- 
torted if  cast  in  any  personal  mold.  To  be  sure,  the  heart  and 
the  imagination,  whenever  deeply  stirred,  respond  instinctively 
by  the  affirmation  of  personality,  just  as  the  optic  nerve,  how- 
ever excited,  whether  chemically,  thermally,  haptically,  or 
photocally,  responds  according  to  the  law  of  specific  energy, 
only  by  the  sensation  of  light.  This  is  the  reaction  of  the 
deeper,  older  strata  of  our  nature.  Men  may  conceive  their 
own  tril)e  or  race  as  a  suffering  and  triumphing  person  like 
the  Messiah  of  the  Hebrew  ])rophets.  We  may  also  more  com- 
prehensively apprehend  humanity  itself  as  a  collective  per- 
sonality, of  which  all  individuals  are  organs,  cells,  or  fibers  in 
it ;  or  we  may  postulate  a  still  more  poetic  soul  of  the  cosmos 


144  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

itself.  But  these  are  ideals.  The  only  real  persons  are  people, 
to  serve  whom  is  the  only  true  service  to  God.  Hence,  all 
divine  authority  is  really  inward,  and  by  rising  to  this  purview 
alone  can  the  sage  become  free  from  all  the  repressions  due  to 
external  constraints  or  impulsiens.  The  most  imperative  voice 
in  the  world  is  the  inner  oracle  of  conscience.  We  approach 
the  Divine  by  self-communion  and  intuition.  There  are  no 
sacrifices  save  those  of  the  baser  elements  of  our  own  nature, 
and  no  objects  of  worship  save  the  best  that  is  in  man.  There 
is  no  litany  or  ritual  save  good  thoughts,  feelings,  deeds,  and 
good  will.  Thus,  we  reach  the  insight  that  the  only  true  re- 
ligious growth  is  inwardization.  The  powers  that  make  for 
good  and  evil  are  not  angels  or  demons,  but  are  in  us.  Rev- 
elation is  the  opening  of  still  more  interior  chambers  in  our 
own  souls,  and  we  are  inspired  when  the  best  latent  elements 
there  become  patent.  When  we  listen  to  and  obey  these  inner 
admonitions,  we  are  true  children  of  the  Divine.  This  resolu- 
tion of  the  objectivities  of  religion  into  subjectivities  brings 
with  it  a  profound  sense  of  self-pity  that  we  have  thought  so 
meanly  of  our  nature  and  its  possibility  when,  in  fact,  we  can- 
not begin  to  think  half  highly  enough  of  it.  Thus,  we  inter- 
nalize all  the  ejects  of  the  soul  by  a  blind  but  sound  pragmatic 
or  pedagogic  instinct.  Objectivity  is,  of  course,  easiest  to 
grasp,  and  more  effective  for  conduct  with  the  masses  than 
this  subjectivization. 

(b)  We  have  no  convincing  proof  that  can  for  a  moment 
satisfy  the  canons  of  logic  of  the  existence  of  revenient  spirits, 
or  even  of  the  post-mortem  perduration  of  personality.  Our 
supreme  mundane  duty  is  to  develop  our  own  physical  and 
psychic  personality  to  its  uttermost,  or,  in  a  word,  to  make 
the  very  most  and  best  of  ourselves  in  this  life,  and  to  find 
sufficient  earthly  motives  for  virtue  and  against  sin  within  our- 
selves and  our  environment.  A  morality  that  needs  rewards 
and  punishments  in  another  life  is  immature,  artificial,  and 
falsetto.  To  be  influenced  by  the  fear  of  pain  or  the  lust  for 
pleasure  in  an  eternal  beyond  is  at  bottom  only  selfishness  and 
Hedonism  in  a  vaster  field.  All  true  rewards  and  penalties 
are  inward,  and  to  the  fully  evolved  soul  these  are  adequate. 
No  real  evil  can  befall  a  good  man,  living  or  dead,  if  he  is 
true  and  loyal  to  himself.    If  there  be  a  future  life  beyond  the 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN       I45 

range  of  all  our  arguments,  the  best  preparation  for  it  is  to 
forget  it  here  and  now,  and  to  live  out  our  present  life  day  by 
day  as  completely  and  purely  as  possible. 

(c)  All  mediatorial  functions  are  for  undeveloped  souls. 
If  a  bad  man  becomes  good  it  is  by  no  external  ceremonial. 
Churches  are  infirmaries  and  sacraments  are  orthopedic  de- 
vices for  the  crippled  and  deformed,  and  priests  are  physicians 
for  the  sickly  or  teachers  for  the  spiritually  immature.  Com- 
merce of  the  soul  with  the  Divine  is  direct  and  immediate. 
Ecclesiastical  functions  are  valuable  only  so  far  as  they  intro- 
duce men  to  powers  within  themselves  that  were  undeveloped ; 
they  are  psychotherapeutic  methods,  the  end  of  which  is  to 
stimulate  inadequate  powers. 

It  is  religion,  rather  than  the  external  world,  as  epistemol- 
ogists  have  so  long  urged,  that  chiefly  needs  to  be  inwardized. 
Philosophic  idealism  expressed  a  profound  instinct,  but  mis- 
carried because  it  mistook  its  field  and  object.  Just  in  pro- 
portion, thus,  as  religion  strikes  in  and  takes  the  form  of 
interior  realization  and  edification,  do  all  its  externals,  having 
accomplished  their  end,  become  deciduous  or  desiccate  to  bar- 
ren formulae.  They  have  worth  just  so  far  as  they  stimulate 
this  inner  growth,  which  is  their  substance,  while  all  else  is 
shadow.  Dogma  is  to  evoke  intuition,  which  then  supersedes 
it.  Penance  and  oblations  are  symbols  of  sloughing  off  our 
baser  selves.  Prayers  are  paradigms  of  aspiration  for  a  higher 
life  and  for  unity  with  the  great  all.  Confession  is  a  form  of 
extradition  of  evil.  The  Eucharist  is  a  type  of  reconsecration 
to  the  service  of  suffering  and  exalted  humanity.  Redeemers 
are  great  moral  and  religious  geniuses  who  help  feebler  folk 
to  realize  the  higher  potentialities  of  the  kingdom  of  man's 
soul.  Regeneration  is  an  exceptionally  rapid  transition  from 
the  crass  and  animal  basis  of  human  life  up  toward  the  ideal 
of  the  spiritual  man.  Revelation  is  inner  truth  that  is  first 
presented  objectively  to  be  appropriated  and  absorljed.  It  is 
something  like  this  that  has  always  been  the  religion  of  the 
great  souls  who  live  among  the  altitudes  of  thought,  and  it  is 
also  the  religion  of  the  future,  although  only  for  the  few, 
though  let  us  hope  steadily  increasing  number,  of  such  souls. 

This  rudely  sketches  the  religion  of  the  intellect  solicitous 
only  for  truth  as  science  defines  it.  It  is  not  for  leaders,  but 
11 


146  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEMS 

for  those  who  have  reached  the  last  stage  of  reHgions  evolu- 
tion and  are  ideally  senescent,  having  attained  the  final  stage 
of  the  Protestant  revolt.  In  contrast  with  this  the  life  of  the 
heart  is  inconceivably  older  and  nearer  to  the  Silurian  ages. 
It  can  never  live  without  its  aesthetics  of  worship.  It  is  be- 
cause genetic  psychology  now  shows  that,  imperatively  as  san- 
ity and  plasticity  require  us  to  live  palpitatingly  in  and  close 
to  the  present,  to  occupy  ourselves  chiefly  with  its  duties,  as 
the  Neo-Christians  exhort  us  to  do,  it  also  recognizes  as  the 
world  has  not  seen  before  that  wherever  the  emotions  are  in- 
volved we  still  live  in  and  through  the  past,  and  that  the  roots 
of  our  being  strike  down  toward  the  beginnings  of  life. 
Recognizing  thus  fully  the  claims  of  a  religion  of  pure  reason, 
we  can  now  realize  more  fully  than  ever  before  that  man  has 
fundamental  pragmatic  or  pedagogic  needs  that  this  can  never 
meet.  The  two  points  of  view  differ  toto  ccbIo,  and  so  do  their 
methods,  but  not  only  are  they  not  inconsistent,  but  each  is 
indispensable  to  the  other.  Nothing  is  so  historic  as  the  soul 
in  the  sense  that  in  each  of  us  it  lives  and  ranges  through  all 
ages,  and  the  error  of  logic  is  in  its  superficial  concept  of  con- 
sistency and  its  failure  to  see  that,  while  the  domain  of  science 
and  reason  must  be  everywhere  advanced,  the  mind  must  not 
in  doing  this  lose  temporal  perspective. 

Now  it  is  in  the  advocacy  of  the  above  most  advanced  con- 
cepts of  religion  fit  for  the  mature  or  post-mature  intellect, 
but  not  for  the  young,  that  we  have  only  another  illustration 
of  the  many  to  be  cited  in  this  volume  of  the  decadence  of  the 
pedagogic  spirit  in  this  country  which  is  without  parallel  in 
history.  From  the  old  New  England  catechism  to  President 
Eliot's  latest  pronouncements  reducing  religion  to  ethical  cul- 
ture, American  educators  have  to  an  extraordinary  degree  ig- 
nored the  nature  and  the  higher  needs  of  the  child,  and  per- 
sistently assumed  that  whatever  was  good  for  them  was,  of 
course,  good  for  him.  No  wonder  such  leaders  think  meanly 
of  pedagogy  and  paidology  as  academic  topics,  or  that  teach- 
ers, so  quick  to  catch  the  animus  of  the  college  and  the  uni- 
versity, still  hold  these  topics  in  light  esteem.  Hence,  it  is  at 
this  point  that  we  must  briefly  glance  at  some  of  the  modern 
causes  and  consequences  of  this  national  loss  of  right  contact 
with  childhood. 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN       i47 

This  has  many  sad  illustrations.  There  are  now  some  two 
million  childless  homes  in  this  country.  Houses  and  flats  are 
built  with  no  nurseries  or  other  provisions  for  children,  and 
landlords  often  discriminate  against  them.  A  large  and  grow- 
ing proportion  of  mothers  cannot  or  will  not  nurse  their  off- 
spring, and  without  the  performance  of  this  function  mother- 
hood is  always  incomplete.  In  Greater  New  York  alone  the 
Gerry  Society  reports  some  fifteen  thousand  children  that  are 
annually  brought  to  their  attention  because  of  parental  cruelty 
or  neglect.  Statistics  show  that  for  the  large  and  growing 
percentage  of  divorces  the  existence  of  children  is  less  often 
a  bar  than  in  other  lands.  The  young  here  are  earlier  eman- 
cipated from  parental  control  and  more  often  feralized  in 
gangs,  and  hoodlumism  is  more  common.  Precocity  in  those 
respects  which  can  be  estimated  is  more  common.  Parents, 
especially  of  only  children,  are  overindulgent,  oversolicitous, 
and  often  bring  their  darlings  up  according  to  fads  and  whims 
which  sadly  interfere  with  nature.  Teachers  report  that  par- 
ents of  foreign  birth  show  much  more  interest  in  the  school 
and  more  pride  in  having  their  children  do  well  than  do  native- 
born  parents.  Again,  the  cultured  classes  marry  late  or  not 
at  all,  and  have  few  children.  American  fathers  of  the  middle 
and  upper  classes  leave  the  children,  even  the  boys  in  the  teens, 
to  the  mothers'  care,  and,  as  school  teachers  are  mostly  women, 
feminine  influence  predominates  at  an  age  when  boys  most 
need  fatherly  and  male  control.  Child-labor  laws  are  still  often 
hard  on  children,  and  in  some  states  the  age  of  consent,  despite 
great  reforms,  in  this  respect  remains  deplorably  low.  Once 
more,  we  are  immeasurably  behind  many  other  lands  in  the 
matter  of  good  toys  for  children,  and  really  know  little  of  the 
vast  variety  and  the  highly  educative  influence  these  can  exert 
over  them.  In  the  matter  of  pictures  adapted  to  childhood, 
especially  wall  pictures  helpful  in  school  work,  we  are  unde- 
veloped. A  goodly  fraction  of  our  population  are  born  and 
reared,  at  least  in  part,  abroad,  and  come  to  our  shores  already 
Ix'yond  the  age  when  they  contribute  to  the  volume  of  child 
life.  Tributary  to  this  same  sad  loss  of  instinctive  and  sym- 
l)athetic  appreciation  of  childhood  and  its  naivete  is  the  fact 
that  we  are  a  new  country,  and  our  history  does  not  go  back 
to  aboriginal  stages.     Such  historic  contact  as  our  children  get 


148  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

with  primitive  life  is  by  the  study  of  the  Indian,  who  is  essen- 
tially of  the  stone  age,  and  between  whom  and  us  there  is  a 
great  chasm  of  development,  to  say  nothing  of  mutual  enmity, 
so  that  this  contributes  its  moiety  to  weaken  our  genetic  sense. 
Our  schools  are  very  advanced  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  regi- 
mentation of  children,  to  setting  and  hearing  lessons,  marking, 
and  all  that  is  material,  formal,  and  mechanical ;  but  the  Amer- 
ican teacher  usually  does  not  and  cannot  really  teach  as  does 
the  German  teacher.  Just  as  the  knight-errants  in  the  days  of 
chivalry  knew,  because  he  lived  with  and  on  him,  his  horse, 
which  we  know  only  from  a  driver's  seat  or  through  the  coach- 
man, so  the  American  parent  and  teacher  once  knew  the  child 
from  close,  vital  contact,  but  now  each  knows  only  certain 
aspects  of  the  child's  life.  Still  further,  the  aging  are  crowded 
out  and  the  juveniles  forced  into  positions  which  they  are  not 
ripe  for.  Life  for  grown  ups  is  so  intensely  absorbing  that 
men  and  women  easily  and  completely  forget  what  it  meant 
even  to  themselves  to  be  a  child,  and  cannot  wait  for  nature  to 
develop  their  own  offspring.  Children  stretch  and  tiptoe  up, 
eager  to  be  men  and  women,  and  often  become  so  prematurely, 
and  hence  often  incompletely,  although  they  save  time  there- 
by; for  all  growth,  whether  of  cereals,  men,  cities,  nations,  is 
interesting  here  only  when  it  is  phenomenally  rapid.  As  the 
young  often  affect  maturity,  so  the  aged  are  prone  to  affect 
youth,  because  all  want  to  get  quickly  to  the  stage  of  maximal 
efficiency  and  to  remain  there  as  long  as  possible.  Our  love 
of  children  is  too  often  that  of  the  auntie,  the  grandmother,  or 
the  doting  bachelor  uncle,  rather  than  that  of  the  normal  par- 
ent. We  constrain  the  child  to  try  to  think  and  reason  before 
it  is  able  to  do  so,  and  hence  neglect  the  nascent  stage  of  drill, 
habituation,  and  discipline,  just  as  we  make  him  write  so  early 
that  penmanship  is  later  a  crippled  thing,  and  give  him  fine 
sedentary  work,  even  in  the  kindergarten,  and  so  bring  symp- 
toms of  chorea  when  the  larger  muscles  should  be  chiefly 
trained.  Thus,  we  see  that  it  is  only  one,  if  a  culminating, 
error  that  we  make  when  we  try  to  train  the  child  to  skip  too 
many  of  the  stages  of  recapitulation  and  become  a  moral  sage 
like  the  noble  Stoic  philosopher,  or  an  ethical  pundit,  and  base 
conduct  upon  intelligent  and  infinitely  complex  knowledge  of 
society  and  his  manifold  relations  to  it  and  of  human  nature 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        i49 

at  a  stage  when  religion  was  meant  to  be  the  chief  of  all  moral- 
izing agencies. 

Thus,  to  summarize,  the  problem  of  religious  education  for 
children  can  be  solved  only  by  looking  primarily  at  their 
nature  and  their  needs.  Religion  is  for  the  child  rather  than 
the  child  for  religion.  Never  in  history  has  an  age  so  lost 
touch  with  childhood,  in  home,  school,  church,  as  our  own, 
which  is  doing  so  much  for  inculcation  and  indoctrination 
with  prepared  culture.  Until  the  recent  child  renaissance  be- 
gan, which  promises  to  better  all  this,  it  was  religion  and 
health  that  suffered  most  of  all.  Some  break  the  infant  soul 
prematurely  into  the  literature,  rites,  and  even  the  creeds  of 
adults.  Others  would  rob  it  of  its  own  natural  religion  by 
attempting  to  exorcise  it  as  superstition.  All  failed  to  see  that 
the  child  must  be  a  good  pagan,  suckled  in  creeds  that  adults 
have  outgrown,  or  else  its  religious  and  moral  nature  will  be 
lamed  and  sickly  through  all  later  life.  Philosophical  systems 
from  Locke,  down,  so  carefully  summarized  by  Lyon,^  shed 
hardly  a  ray  of  light  here.  Worse  even  than  their  pedagogic 
methods  is  the  spirit  which  most  of  the  Sunday-school  experts 
— Protestant,  Jewish,  and  Catholic  in  almost  equal  degree, 
though  in  different  ways — show,  in  tearing  the  embryonic  soul 
from  its  very  placenta  of  superstitious  nature  worship,  in  which 
it  should  be  left  to  ripen  for  due  season.  It  is  because  we  flay 
instead  of  awaiting  normal  moults  that  the  juvenile  mind  so 
early  becomes  sore  and  raw  with  consciousness  on  religious 
matters,  or  else  with  premature  inculcations  which,  according 
to  an  iron  law,  tend  to  become  encystments  too  tough  to  be  shed, 
and  so  work  their  havoc.  He  or  she  who  has  never  been  a 
true  child  in  religious  matters  will  never  become  a  full-grown 
man  or  woman.  And  hence  come  the  common  stigmata  of 
infantilism  in  this  function.  Just  as  the  Freud  school  shows 
that  precocious  sexuality  or  especially  assaults  tend  to  impair 
all  the  psychic  functions  of  marital  and  parental  life,  so  ques- 
tionmiire  returns  aliound  in  analogous  results  due  to  forcing 
religious  activities  before  their  time.  It  has  often  been  asked 
of  late  whether  the  child  can  survive  modern  civilization  which 


'  Lyon,  Georges,   Enseignement   et   Religion;    Etudes   Philosophiques,  Alcan, 
Paris,  1907,  237  p. 


150  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

at  so  many  points  is  so  hard  on  it.  Many  perfervid  inciilcators 
are  so  devoid  of  sympathy  into,  and  so  ilHterate  on,  childhood 
that  if  they  had  their  way  the  sweet,  natural  religion,  which 
is  the  psychoplasm  out  of  which  true  piety  of  every  ilk  and 
name  is  made,  would  in  a  few  generations  be  as  nearly  eradi- 
cated as  anything  with  such  vast  momentum  of  heredity  be- 
hind it  can  be.  So  invincible  is  their  sense  that  what  is  good 
per  se  or  for  them  is  of  course  good  for  the  child,  so  fanatical 
their  instinct  of  indoctrination,  so  prone  are  they  to  regard 
religion  as  an  infection  or  conquest  rather  than  a  growth,  so 
ignorant  are  they  of  the  very  existence  of  paidology,  from  the 
standpoint  of  which  a  man  may  hold  all  the  above  views  and 
be  at  the  same  time  a  devotee  of  any  creed  or  sect,  that  they 
are  still  sometimes  prone  to  sling  the  mud  of  religious  intoler- 
ance at  a  plain,  hard-working  devotee  of  the  science  of  the 
child  by  dubbing  him  as  some  kind  of  an  ist,  or  arian,  or  ologist, 
or  to  otherwise  raise  the  old  "  hep  "  or  hue  and  cry  of  heretic 
or  sceptic.  In  this  tendency  we  sometimes  see,  even  in  our 
own  day,  the  attenuated  relic  of  the  bigotry  and  fanaticism 
that  made  the  old  religious  persecution.  Said  an  eminent  Sun- 
day-school worker,  an  authority  in  such  matters  as  roll  calls, 
rewards  of  merit,  picnics,  records,  departments,  chalk  talks, 
and  sermonettes,  a  man  gifted  in  conducting  child  prayer  meet- 
ings and  revivals :  "  We  care  not  what  the  child  is  by  nature. 
We  are  interested  only  in  what  it  can  be  made  by  grace.  No 
matter  what  it  is,  the  one  and  only  great  fact  that  concerns  us  is 
that  the  divine  spirit  can  transmute  its  nature,  and  thus  save 
its  soul  from  eternal  death.  Until  gathered  into  the  true  fold, 
all  are  children  of  the  evil  one,  and  not  of  God,  Thus,  we 
should  save  rather  than  study  them."  Thus,  as  the  noble 
ideals  of  chivalry  could  degenerate  to  the  level  of  a  Don  Quix- 
ote, so  the  Holy  Ghost  itself  can  have  doughty,  wooden-souled 
knights  ready  to  joust  against  anything  natural,  and  it  is  a 
new  proof  of  the  vitality  of  religion  and  of  its  power  to  in- 
fluence life  for  the  better  that,  despite  all  such  aberrations,  we 
still  believe  in  this  function  of  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  happily  passed  beyond  the 
smug  complacency  of  the  days  when  uniformity  was  the  chief 
inspiration,  and  when  "  eight  million  American  children  and 
adults  studying  Abraham's  sacrifice  at  the  same  time  "  consti- 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        151 

tuted  "  the  most  sublime  and  reassuring  fact  in  the  universe," 
when  "  a  batch  of  cheap  songs  by  cheap  amateurs  were 
whacked  up  for  each  lesson,"  and  prayer  was  the  best  prepara- 
tion a  teacher  could  make.  The  uniformitarian  movement 
left,  however,  as  its  most  precious  legacy  the  ideal  of  a  union 
of  at  least  all  Protestant  denominations  in  this  work,  which  is 
still  bearing  good  fruit,  for  sectarian  differences  are  not  for 
childhood.  Now  we  find  at  the  other  extreme  the  movement 
to  emulate,  and  even  outdo,  the  public  school  in  elaborate 
gradations  in  departments  and  classes,  one  scheme  being  to 
have  a  complete  series  of  lessons  for  every  year  between  the 
ages  of  six  and  twenty-one.  Some  even  suggest  salaried 
teachers,  tuition  fees  from  pupils,  written  examinations  for 
promotion,  records,  prizes,  diplomas,  and  professional  super- 
intendence ;  while  others  demand  Sunday-school  chairs  in  the- 
ological seminaries  that  clergymen  may  be  qualified  to  take  a 
greater  and  more  intelligent  interest  in  the  Sunday-school. 
One  eminent  leader  pleads  for  the  endowment  of  a  national 
Sunday-school  university;  another  urges  that  large  Sunday- 
schools  have  classes  for  defective  and  subnormal  children. 
One  wishes  a  special  Sunday-school  ritual  and  a  system  of 
sponsors,  and  proposes  prizes  for  the  best  sermonettes  and 
model  prayers  for  children,  and  volunteer  tutors  for  those  that 
are  backward  or  retarded  as  a  mode  of  special  coaching. 
Another  would  revive  the  catechism  and  have  printed  questions 
and  answers  with  proof  texts  to  be  memorized. 

Meanwhile,  but  a  few  years  have  passed  since  Prof.  Her- 
bert B,  Adams,  after  an  elaborate  summary,  told  us  that 
"  America  is  probably  one  of  the  most  backward  countries  in 
the  Protestant  world  as  regards  intelligent  historical  and  lit- 
erary study  of  the  Bible."  ^  The  ineffectiveness  of  our  re- 
ligious training  is  strikingly  brought  out  by  several  sets  of 
statistics,  showing  that  a  varying  but  always  large  majority 
of  the  inmates  of  juvenile  reformatories,  as  of  adults  in  jails 
and  prisons,  were  once  Sunday-school  scholars ;  and  also  by 
the  presentments  of  President  Thwing.-     He  found  that  less 

•  Adams,  H.  B.,  Church  and  Popular  Education.  Johns  Hopkins  Univ.  Studies 
in  Hist,  and  Pol.  S<  i.,  1900,  ser.  18,  Nos.  8-9,  84  p. 

'  Thwing,  C.  F.,  .Significant  Ignorance  alK>ut  the  Bible  as  Shown  .Among  College 
Students  of  Both  Sexes.    Century,  May,  lyoo,  vol.  38,  pp.  123-28. 


152  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

than  half  of  the  plain  Biblical  allusions  in  a  set  of  passages 
from  Tennyson  were  understood,  and  found  reason  to  believe 
the  same  was  true  of  Browning.  Indeed,  English  literature 
has  developed  in  very  close  relations  with  the  Bible,  which  is 
a  key  to  much  of  it.  Small  as  the  number  of  students  here 
tested  is,  the  author  gives  reason  for  believing  that  his  results 
are  typical  for  our  academic  youth,  and  ascribes  this  neglect 
of  Scripture  to  multiplication  of  other  printed  matter  (seven 
to  ten  thousand  volumes  being  published  annually  in  this  coun- 
try, to  say  nothing  of  the  rising  tide  of  periodical  literature 
and  the  daily  press,  and  the  special  Sunday-school  publica- 
tions, which  are  legion),  to  the  decline  of  family  life  and 
prayers  which  the  Sunday-school  has  not  compensated  for,  and 
to  the  decay  of  Sabbath  observance.  Very  hopeful  of  better 
things,  however,  is  the  growing  insight  among  the  advanced 
Sunday-school  men  and  women,  that  everything  here  must 
take  its  cue  from  the  child.  This  at  least  gives  the  right  ori- 
entation. The  Rev.  J.  L.  Hurlburt  says :  "  The  study  of 
the  child  is  in  our  day  the  subject  to  which  the  greatest  teach- 
ers and  the  greatest  teachers  of  teachers  are  devoting  their 
best  energy.  No  book  on  teaching  is  of  value  that  omits  or 
treats  carelessly  this  important  department."  ^  M.  C.  Brown  ^ 
says :  "  From  the  child-study  point  of  view  the  child,  like  the 
race,  must  ordinarily  pass  through  the  more  elementary  stages 
of  spiritual  growth."  C.  L.  Drawbridge  ^  bases  his  hope  of 
escape  from  the  fact  that  now  "  the  whole  thing  ( Sunday- 
school  work)  is  a  confused  jumble  in  children's  minds,"  for 
the  new  scientific  knowledge  we  are  relying  on  the  child.  G. 
H.  Archibald  ^  says :  "  I  am  not  unmindful  that  genetic  psy- 
chology, commonly  called  child  study,  is  yet  in  its  infancy, 
but  enough  has  been  revealed  already  of  the  nature  of  the 
child,  enough  that  is  definite  and  final,  to  show  to  the  teacher 
of  religion  and  morals  the  need  there  is  for  him  to  change 
his  plan  of  organization,  to  reform  his  methods  of  teaching, 

'  The  Introduction  to  A.  H.  McKinney's  Bible  School  Pedagogy.  Eaton  & 
Mains,  N.  Y.,  1900,  78  p. 

^  Sunday-school  Movements  in  America.     Revell,  N.  Y.,  1901,  269  p. 

'  Religious  Education,  How  to  Improve  It.     Longmans,  Lond.,  1906,  222  p. 

*  The  Sunday-school  of  To-morrow.  The  Sunday-school  Union,  London, 
1909,  p.  7  and  p.  103  et  seq. 


THE   RELIGIOUS    TRAINING   OF    CHILDREN        153 

and  enable  him  to  follow  the  line  of  least  resistance.  .  .  . 
The  children  have  been  subjected  to  adult  requirements,  and 
everything,  so  far  as  they  are  concerned,  has  had  to  give  way 
to  adult  conveniences.  But  this  must  be  changed.  When  the 
members  of  the  church,  the  adult  church,  come  to  see  their 
duty,  when,  because  of  failure,  they  are  forced  to  inquire  into 
the  cause  of  decay  and  seriously  examine  the  nature  and  needs 
of  the  children,  these  things  will  be  changed,  and  church 
buildings,  church  schools,  etc.,  will  be  adapted  to  the  needs  of 
the  children  and  youth. 

Says  J.  S.  Kornfeld,*  "  the  radical  defect  in  our  Bible 
teaching  lies  in  our  total  indifference  to  the  power  of  a  child's 
apperception,"  and  even  the  Religious  Education  Association 
seeks  to  bring  about  in  the  Sunday-school  "  an  adaptation  of 
the  material  method  of  instruction  to  the  several  stages  of  the 
mental,  moral,  and  spiritual  growth  of  the  individual."  But, 
alas !  Is  there  any  class  of  people  save  promoters  of  new  finan- 
cial projects  who  so  divorce  prospectus  and  theory  from  facts 
as  teachers?  How  often  do  we  hear  the  most  alluring  peda- 
gogic ideals  from  educators  who  violate  in  their  own  practice 
every  principle  they  advocate  in  public !  Perhaps  the  vacation 
and  convention  moods  atone  for  practices  that  are  sometimes 
vicious  or  else  vent  aspirations  that  are  useful  only  in  keeping 
up  courage  in  work  handicapped  by  difficulties  and  traditions 
that  would  otherwise  be  intolerable.  The  whole  church  will 
one  day  be  organized  on  this  new  basis,  and  its  members  in 
council  will  look  back  with  wonder  and  pity  upon  the  dark 
ages  of  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries,  when  the 
church  was  buried  in  formalism  and  self-complacency,  and  the 
children  were  overlooked  and  forgotten.  We  can  now  profit, 
if  we  have  no  phobia  for  things  "  made  in  Germany,"  by  the 
remarkable  pedagogic  organization  of  religious  education  for 
children  there.^ 

The  belief  in  the  absolute  and  literal  truthfulness  and  final- 
ity of  the  Bible  often  makes  of  the  Book  of  Books  a  pedagogic 
incubus  and  monstrosity.     It  is,  as  Moulton  says,  the  worst- 

'  Bible  in  the  Sun<Iay-sch<x)l.  The  Open  Court,  August,  i90<>,  vol.  23,  pp.  476- 
483. 

*  See  an  admirable  presentation  of  this  subject  for  each  German  State,  by 
Guttler,  Wilhelm:  Die  religidse  Kindererziehung  im  Deutschen  Reichc,  1908,  331  p. 


154  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

printed  book  in  the  world,  with  sins  unnumbered  against  the 
hygiene  of  the  eye ;  but  it  is  also,  as  Kornfeld  urges,  the  worst 
taught  of  all  books,  and,  as  I  would  add,  the  most  grossly 
misunderstood.  To  eliminate  it  from  education,  as  the  secular 
schools  do,  is  as  preposterous  pedagogically  as  it  would  have 
been  in  the  days  of  Plato  to  taboo  Homer  in  the  education  of 
the  Greek  youth.  It  is  not  only  a  model  of  English,  translated 
just  at  that  period  and  in  just  the  way  that  make  it  one  of 
the  best  monuments  in  our  language  of  direct,  simple,  forcible 
Saxon  style,  but  it  is  impossible  to  understand  the  culture  his- 
tory of  any  country  of  Europe  without  it,  as  it  has  influenced 
the  literature,  history,  and  the  life  of  the  Western  nations  as 
no  other  book  has  begun  to  do.  Now  that  we  have  a  new 
historical  revelation  of  it  by  the  higher  criticism,  this  out- 
rageous abuse  should  cease.  The  best  myth  is  philosophy 
pedagogically  adapted  to  the  young,  and  philosophy  is  only 
myth  written  and  revealed  in  terms  of  the  adult  intellect.  The 
child  feels  the  full  force  of  Grimm's  "  Marchen,"  of  the 
"  Niebelungenlied,"  the  "  Arthuriad,"  the  "  Iliad,"  and  the 
"  Odyssey,"  without  torturing  his  mind  at  every  step  with  the 
priggish  and  insistent  question  whether  the  incidents  and  he- 
roes are  objectively  and  historically  true,  as  our  methods  have 
taught  him  to  do  regarding  Scripture.  Thus,  the  essential  truth 
is  missed,  and  its  unique  edification  miscarries.  Again,  every 
act  and  word  of  both  Jehovah  and  Jesus  was  exactly  and  ex- 
quisitely adapted  to  the  immediate  environment  and  occasion 
which  invoked  it.  The  prophets  attempted  little  prediction, 
but  were  occupied  chiefly  in  interpreting  the  present  optimistic- 
ally even  in  the  hardest  of  hard,  times.  As  a  whole,  Scripture 
is  a  masterpiece  of  adjustment,  of  making  the  best  and  most 
of  events  as  they  arose.  Hence,  it  follow^s  that  there  is  much 
that  is  unfitted  to  the  individual  or  to  the  life  of  to-day,  so 
that  expurgation  is  needed.  But  this  done,  the  remainder, 
fitly  printed,  arranged  and  understood,  should  be  taught  to 
every  child  as  an  inalienable  birthright.  Even  its  miraculous 
records  are  mostly,  as  now  interpreted,  psycho-pedagogic 
chefs-d'oeuvre  of  unique  power,  into  all  the  higher  meanings 
of  which  their  symbols  unfold  as  the  soul  ripens  to  maturity. 
Thus,  there  is  no  such  text-book  of  both  the  higher  anthropol- 
ogy of  races  and  of  genetic  psychology  showing  how  the  indi- 


THE  RELIGIOUS   TRAINING  OF   CHILDREN       IS5 

vicinal  expands  and  approximates  the  dimensions  of  the  ethnic 
consciousness. 

This  brings  me  to  my  special  theme.  One  of  the  best  edu- 
cational signs  of  the  times  is  a  growing  sense  of  the  importance 
of  the  Sabbath-school  and  the  greatly  increased  attention  given 
to  all  methods  of  religious  training  for  childhood  and  youth. 
Perhaps  never  have  the  limitations  of  the  Sunday-school,  at 
least  in  the  way  of  scant  professional  training  for  teachers  as 
well  as  in  time  and  attendance,  been  more  keenly  felt  or  the 
demand  for  an  improvement  upon  existing  methods  been  more 
urgent  than  now.  This  is  seen  in  many  new  tentative  methods 
and  schemes ;  some  by  scholars  which  usually  lack  adaptation ; 
others  by  nonexperts  animated  by  zeal  and  love  of  imparting 
the  blessings  of  religion  to  childhood,  but  liable  to  lack  in 
knowledge  or  pedagogical  quality.  Those  of  us  who  are  in 
quest  of  something  better  ought  first  of  all  to  pay  the  heartiest 
tribute  of  gratitude  to  all  those  who  have  contributed  to  cur- 
rent systems,  which  were  an  immeasurable  advance  over  those 
which  preceded  them,  and  I  wish  first  of  all  to  say  with  the 
greatest  earnestness  that,  if  in  some  of  the  positions  taken  here 
I  differ  from  present  usages,  it  is  not  without  a  profound 
sense  of  gratitude  and  obligation  to  previous  workers,  and 
with  the  recognition  that  it  is  their  work  that  has  made  fur- 
ther progress  imperative  or  even  possible. 

As  a  special  teacher  and  student  of  the  human  soul  as  well 
as  of  education,  religious  teaching  has  long  been  a  center  of 
interest,  and  several  of  my  best  students  have  at  my  sug- 
gestion published  careful  and  comprehensive  studies  of  differ- 
ent aspects  of  the  subject.^  Indeed,  psychology  presents  a  new 
standpoint  in  looking,  as  I  have  said,  primarily  at  the  nature, 
needs,  and  power  of  the  growing  soul  of  childhood  during  its 

'  The  New  Life:  A  Study  of  Regeneration,  by  Arthur  H.  Daniels.  Amer. 
Jour,  of  Psych.,  Oct.,  1893,  vol.  6,  pp.  61-106.  Sunday-School  Work  and  Bible 
Study  in  the  Light  of  Modem  Pedagogy,  by  A.  Caswell  Ellis.  Ped.  Sem.,  June, 
1896,  vol.  3,  pp.  363-412.  Psychology  and  Pedagogy  of  Adolescence,  by  E.  G. 
Lancaster.  Ped.  Sem.,  July,  1897,  vol.  5,  pp.  61-128.  ChiUlR-n'j  Interest  in  the 
Bible,  by  George  E.  Dawson.  Ped.  Sem.,  July,  1900,  vol.  7,  pp.  151-178.  The 
Pedagogical  Bible  School,  by  Samuel  B.  Haslett,  New  York.  F.  H.  Revell  Co., 
1903,  383  p.  A  Genetic  Study  of  Veracity,  by  Edward  Porter  St.  John.  Ped. 
Sem.,  June,  iqo8,  vol.  15,  pp.  246-270.  The  Religion  of  Childhood,  by  J.  R. 
Street.     Homiletic  Review,  May,  1908,  vol.  55,  pp.  371-375. 


156 


EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 


successive  stages,  and  in  basing  methods  upon  this  knowledge. 
In  what  follows,  the  writer  must  seek  indulgence  if  occasion- 
ally in  the  interest  of  brevity  he  seems  sometimes  dogmatic. 


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THE    RELIGIOUS    TRAINING   OF    CHILDREN        157 


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The  purpose  is  to  define  a  few  fundamental  principles  that  rest 
upon  solid  psycho-ijedagogical  foundations,  and  to  plead  for 
such  modifications  in  present  methods,  text-books,  etc.,  as  are 
necessary  to  conform  to  them.  I  know  of  no  previous  at- 
tempts, unless  in  part  some  of  those  just  referred  to,  to  appeal 
to  the  principle  of  psycho-genesis  in  this  field,  and  while  the 
following  attempt  no  doubt  shares  the  limitations  of  all  first 
eflforts  in  new  directions  in  a  great  field,  I  have  slowly  grown 
to  have  much  confidence  in  the  principles  below,  as  resting 
upon  solid  psycho-pedagogical  foundations,  according  to  which 
I  think  all  methods,  text-books,  and  helps  should  be  made. 

I.  The  Old  Testament  should  predominate  over  the  New 
for  lx)ys  and  girls  before  the  dawn  of  adolescence.  This  by 
no  means  excludes  instruction  in  matters  pertaining  to  the  New 
Testament,  but  it  is  a  matter  of  relative  time  and  energy.  I 
know  of  no  scheme  of  Bible  work  that  has  recognized  this 
principle,  which  is  very  plain  from  our  present  knowledge  of 


158  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

the  characteristics  of  the  different  stages  of  youthful  develop- 
ment. Although  this  had  been  repeatedly  said  before,  it  was 
reserved  for  Prof.  George  E.  Dawson  to  supply  statistical 
data.^  He  circulated  some  14,000  questionnaires,  and  from  the, 
it  must  be  confessed,  all  too  meager  returns  he  received,  con- 
structed a  curve  of  the  interests  of  American  Evangelical  Sun- 
day-school children,  from  which  it  appears  that,  at  the  age  of 
eight,  some  sixty  per  cent  of  the  boys  and  seventy-two  per  cent 
of  the  girls  are  more  interested  in  the  New  Testament  than  in 
the  Old.  About  a  year  later  the  lines  cross,  indicating  equal 
interest,  and  from  thence  interest  in  the  New  Testament  de- 
clines till  a  minimum  of  thirty-two  per  cent  is  reached  for 
boys  at  fourteen,  and  for  girls  thirty  per  cent  at  twelve, 
after  which  the  New  Testament  interest  increases  steadily  at 
least  to  the  age  of  .twenty,  where  his  census  ends.  The  preced- 
ing curves  of  interest,  on  pp.  156  and  157,  explain  themselves. 
It  is  a  cardinal  principle  of  pedagogy  that  interest  is  the 
best  index  of  capacity  or  pedagogical  ripeness.  It  is,  like 
hunger,  an  expression  of  need.  Literature  abounds  in  illustra- 
tions of  the  vastly  greater  rapidity  and  ease  of  every  kind  of 
education  when  interest  is  enlisted,  and  of  the  superficial  and 
even  health-destroying  effect  of  knowledge  forced  on  minds 
deficient  in  interest.  While  shallow  interests  can  be  easily  gen- 
erated by  adults,  whose  inevitable  weakness  it  is  to  mistake 
the  semblance  for  the  thing,  the  deeper,  more  irrepressible  in- 
stincts that  need  no  solicitation  are  the  only  organs  of  true 
apperception  and  of  permanent  acquisition.  The  nascent  sea- 
sons, when  the  soul  is  ripe  for  the  impregnation  of  sacred 
truth,  which  are  now  being  determined  for  the  various  secular 
studies  as  all  conditioning  and  dominant,  are  the  seasons  of 
the  efflorescence  of  interests.  Interest  is  the  first  manifestation 
of  superior  talent  and  genius,  to  follow  which  leads  to  emi- 
nence and  to  neglect  which  makes  children  commonplace  and 
monotonously  uniform  as  well  as  chronically  fatigued.  For 
pedagogy,  indeed,  interest  is  a  word  which  looms  up  almost 
like  the  mighty  word  faith  for  the  Christian.  Nor  is  it  psy- 
chologically unlike  faith  in  its  generic,  but  is  so  only  in  its 
specific  qualities.     It  predisposes  to  knowledge,  insight,  and 

'  Children's  Interest  in  the  Bible.     Ped.  Sem.,  July,  1900,  vol.  7,  pp.  151-178. 


THE  RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN       159 

belief,  and  each  stage  of  childhood  and  youth  is  marked  by  its 
own  set  of  dominant  interests  or  "  nascent  periods,"  to  neglect 
which  is  almost  like  grieving  and  sinning  away  the  visitations 
of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

To  teach  the  young  we  must  go  to  them  and  take  them  as 
they  are,  understanding  their  weakness,  limitations,  and  igno- 
rance with  the  deepest  sympathy;  we*  must  turn  our  backs 
resolutely  upon  the  standpoint  of  the  adult  and  not  offend  the 
little  ones.  If  the  burning  words  of  Jesus  suggesting  the  fit 
penalty  for  those  who  do  so  were  a  sentence  to  be  literally 
executed,  millstones  would  be  in  great  demand.  "  Daniel  in 
the  Lions'  Den  "  was  the  most  attractive  scene  in  all  the  Bible 
to  boys,  who  associated  him  with  lion  tamers  in  menageries, 
with  Daniel  Boone,  etc.  David  and  Goliath  thrills  the  boyish 
heart  because  it  is  a  fight  ending  in  blood,  and  the  victory  of 
the  smaller  but  better  man,  and  because  the  sling  interest  cul- 
minates at  that  age.  Many  boys,  as  they  confess,  are  inter- 
ested in  the  crucifixion  at  this  age  because  it  is  an  execution, 
and  they  bring  to  it  some  of  the  same  zest  w^ith  which  they 
read  the  newspaper  columns  of  hangings  and  murders.  Sam- 
son, the  Hebrew  Hercules,  is  an  especial  favorite  when  the 
athletic  pulse  begins  to  beat  high  just  before  the  teens,  and  the 
romance  of  Joseph's  life  appeals  to  them  far  more  deeply  than 
that  of  the  precociously  pious  Samuel.  The  incidents  in  the 
lives  of  Abraham,  Moses,  Saul,  David,  Joshua,  Balaam,  Elijah, 
Elisha,  and  Jacob;  manna  and  the  quails;  the  brazen  serpent, 
and  later,  stories  of  Ahab,  Jonah,  Ruth,  Esther ;  Cain  and  Abel 
as  illustrating  the  agricultural  and  the  pastoral  stage ;  the  cap- 
tivity and  return,  some  of  the  prophets,  some  items  of  the  law, 
awaken  interest  in  an  order  yet  to  be  more  definitely  and 
minutely  determined. 

Children  of  this  age  lead  a  life  eminently  objective;  they 
look  outward,  and  should  not  be  encouraged  to  look  inward. 
They  love  exciting  events,  battles,  the  flood  and  tower.  They 
admire  character,  for  this  is  an  age  of  intense  hero  worship, 
and  interest  in  persons  is  necessary  to  animate  interest  in 
causes,  ideas,  all  geographical  localities,  ceremonials,  etc.  It 
is  the  age,  too,  of  justice;  all  studies  of  the  rules  of  games 
show  that  the  ideals  of  fair  play  are  never  higher  or  stronger. 
Boy  punishment  for  overstepping  the  law  of  justice  is  remorse- 


i6o  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

less  and  sometimes  cruel,  as  were  Jehovah's.  The  sense  of 
law  looms  up  in  human  life  long  before  that  of  the  Gospel. 
The  Old  Testament,  too,  has  a  far  greater  variety  of  striking 
events,  a  greater  wealth  of  history,  a  larger  repertory  of  per- 
sons, dramatic  and  romantic  incidents.  Moreover,  this  is  the 
stage  of  life  when  the  boy,  who  repeats  and  recapitulates  in 
his  development  the  entire  life  of  the  race,  is  at  the  same  stage 
in  which  Old  Testament  events  live,  move,  and  have  their  be- 
ing. Fear,  anger,  jealousy,  hate,  revenge,  but  not  yet  love, 
are  strong  and  often  dominant.  The  lower  motive  powers  of 
human  nature,  which  furnish  the  mainsprings  of  life,  are  now 
being  developed,  and  the  age  for  unfolding  the  higher  powers, 
which  control  and  direct  these  aright,  has  not  yet  come.  The 
more  we  come  to  understand  the  real  nature  and  interests  of 
boy  life;  how  this  period  is  preeminently  the  age  of  drill  and 
discipline  and,  if  so  dangerous  a  word  might  be  used,  of  a 
higher  animality,  egoism  and  selfishness,  when  currents  of 
support,  knowledge,  and  guidance  all  flow  to  the  child,  and 
the  sense  of  earthly,  may  gradually  emerge  into  one  of  a  heav- 
enly, parentage  that  is  wise,  somewhat  stern  and  not  precipi- 
tately longing  to  forgive,  not  too  easily  swayed  by  petitions 
or  tears,  if  ever  so  vague,  nevertheless  giving  a  kind  of 
resonator  reenforcement  to  parental  authority,  wise  enough  to 
compel  acquiescence  at  least  in  the  depths  of  the  soul,  and, 
even  though  training  may  seem  severe,  with  hope  and  trust  at 
the  bottom — the  more  we  shall  realize  that  the  nature  and 
needs  of  this  boy  stage  of  life  are  so  well  met  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment that  they  actually  supply  a  new  and  very  cogent  con- 
firmation and  proof  of  its  supreme  pedagogical  quality  and 
essential  truth,  which  has  never  yet  been  recognized. 

We  have  long  been  taught  that  the  Old  Testament  pre- 
pares for  the  New;  that  what  lay  concealed  in  the  former 
stands  revealed  in  the  latter,  but  in  our  Bible  teaching  we  have 
not  only  ignored  this  obvious  fact  and  confused  the  two  with- 
out any  reason,  but  have  sometimes  reversed  this  law  as  if 
the  New  Testament  were  the  only  introduction  to  the  Old. 
We  are  told  that  Christ  came  in  the  fullness  of  time,  but  our 
Sunday-school  authorities  would  seem  to  imply  that  he  made 
a  mistake  which  they  must  correct,  and  in  this  they  violate  a 
cardinal  principle  of  Christianity  itself.    Again,  the  old  Testa- 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        i6i 

ment  is  taught  as  full  of  prelusions  and  prophetic  anticipations 
of  something  higher ;  in  exactly  the  same  way  boyhood  is  per- 
meated with  premonitions  of  the  great  new  birth  of  adoles- 
cence, and  in  this  respect  the  Old  Testament  prepares  for  the 
New.  All  this  is  true  whether  we  interpret  the  Old  Testament 
literally  as  old  or  allow  the  new  higher  criticism,  which  gives 
such  different  interpretation  of  the  stages  of  development  of 
Jehovah  worship  and  the  rise  and  function  of  prophecy.  The 
Old  Testament  is  the  most  vivid  and  complete  picture  of  the 
development  of  the  moral  and  religious  consciousness  of  the 
race;  here  the  Semitic  mind  most  exceeds  the  Aryan,  and  it 
affords  a  wide  and  pedagogic  proportion  of  immanence  and 
transcendence.  It  stimulates  profoundly  the  sentiments  of  awe 
and  reverence  on  which  religion  rests  in  the  human  soul  and 
which  precede  the  dawn  of  the  altruistic  impulses.  Hence, 
while  the  prophecies  are  not  yet  appreciated,  Job  and  the  wis- 
dom books  and  Psalms  not  fully  comprehended,  and  therefore 
should  not  receive  the  chief  stress  of  instruction,  their  influence 
should  be  felt  and  is  deeply  formative.^ 

n.  The  second  and  somewhat  complementary  principle  is 
that  the  New  Testament  is  chiefly  for  adolescence.  Jesus  was 
animated  by  the  great  principle  of  love  and  self-sacrifice,  and 
these  motives  cannot  be  comprehended  by  the  mind  or  deeply 
felt  by  the  heart  until  the  dawn  of  that  great  physical  regen- 
eration, when  love  takes  up  the  harp  of  life  and  smites  on  all 
the  chords  at  once,  the  very  recent  study  of  which  from  so 
many  points  of  view  marks  an  important  epoch  in  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  development  of  the  human  soul.  To  understand 
the  broad  and  deep  import  of  this  principle,  it  is  necessary  to 
have  some  knowledge  of  writers  like  Marro,  Lancaster,  Burn- 

'  Many,  says  J.  E.  Mercer  (Is  the  Old  Testament  a  Suitable  Basis  for  Moral 
Instruction?  Hibbert  Journal,  January,  190Q,  vol.  7,  pp.  333-345)  refusi-  to  al- 
low the  existence  of  moral  difficulties  in  the  Old  Testament  or  dissolve  thi-ni  in  the 
glow  and  fervor  of  unquestioning  faith,  while  others  if  pressed  admit  diflkulties 
but  think  it  wiser  to  let  sleeping  dogs  lie.  The  fitness  of  the  Old  Testament  as  a 
basis  for  moral  instruction  is  certainly  o[)en  to  grave  question.  Jesus  often  refern^d 
to  it  but  to  contrast  its  immaturity  with  his  own  higher  teaching.  We  must  Ix-ware 
of  relapsing  to  the  lower  morality  of  old  codes  and  in  many  respects  certainly  that 
of  the  ancient  Hebrews  was  inferior  to  our  own.  We  cannot  worship  to-<lay  the 
Old  Testament  Jehovah  for  bcjth  moral  and  intellectual  grounds.  The  higher 
criticism  d<x'S  not  relieve  the  situation. 
12 


i62  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ham,  Letiba,  Starbuck,  Coe,  and  perhaps  a  score  of  others,  who 
have  so  recently  contributed  to  this  great  turning  point  of  Hfe 
from  the  predominance  of  ego-centric  to  akro-centric  motives. 
Into  this  I  cannot  enter  here.^  Suffice  it  to  say  that  boys  be- 
fore twelve  or  fourteen  have  normally  little  real  interest  in 
the  character,  life,  or  teachings  of  Jesus,  and  it  is  a  bad  sign 
if  they  do.  There  is  little  in  their  souls  that  responds  to  the 
Gospel.  Here  again  it  is  easy  to  work  up  a  superficial  interest 
as  a  Sunday-school  artifact,  but  this  is  because  of  the  long 
historic  and  instinctive  subjection  of  child  to  adult  life.  The 
danger  is  that  precocious  interest  in  Jesus  will  result  in  con- 
ceptions of  His  character  and  work  that  will  dwarf  more  ade- 
quate ideas  later,  and  that  a  premature  interest  in  Him  will 
interfere  with  the  great  deepening  and  enlargement  of  the 
afifectional  nature  which  the  early  teens  bring.  Juvenile  piety 
in  any  drastic  sense  is  always  a  dangerous  thing.  Boy  Chris- 
tians illustrate  John  Stuart  Mill's  description  of  very  early 
risers  who  are  conceited  all  the  forenoon  and  dull  all  the  after- 
noon and  cross  all  the  evening.  Much  current  Sunday-school 
inculcation  is  psycho-pedagogically  analogous  to  trying  to 
teach  boys  of  this  age  the  nature  and  responsibilities  of  mar- 
ried life.  Precocious  training  before  the  advent  of  its  proper 
nascent  period  is  always  open  to  two  grave  objections :  the 
first,  that  it  is  a  waste  of  time  to  teach  by  labored  methods 
what  would  come  of  itself  later;  and,  second,  it  leads  to  a 
preformation  and  preoccupation  of  both  heart  and  brain  that 
rub  the  bloom,  zest,  and  force  off  these  subjects,  so  that  when 
the  time  is  ripe  they  seem  stale  or  deflowered  of  interest,  and 
are  met  with  indifference  and  ennui.  Third,  and  worst  of  all, 
narrow  childish  images,  conceptions,  and  thought  forms  are 
already  developed  and  made  so  hard  and  rigid  by  the  great 
sense  of  the  importance  of  the  subject  that  their  transformation 
is  difficult.  Who  has  not  been  struck  by  the  falsetto  notes  in 
prayer  meeting  and  in  descriptions  of  religious  experiences, 
which  remind  us  of  the  old  reading-book  poem  of  "  Orator 
Pufif,"  with  two  tones  to  his  voice?  It  is  the  calamity  of 
Christianity  that  its  ideas  and  experiences  are  too  often  char- 
acterized by  notes  of  infantilism  due  to  arrested  religious  de- 

'  See  this  point  explained  in  my  Adolescence,  vol.  2,  chap.  xiv. 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        163 

vclopment.  Just  as  we  can  spoil  hand  writing  by  forcing  it 
too  early,  and  condemn  to  life-long  school  tricks,  like  finger 
counting,  by  laying  too  early  stress  on  arithmetic,  etc.,  so  in 
religious  instruction  there  are  the  same  dangers,  but  vastly 
greater  and  more  calamitous. 

No  doubt  some  children  can  be  taught  to  love  Jesus  as  a 
kindly,  sympathetic  being  very  early  in  life,  and  at  puberty 
this  sentiment  can  be  normally  deepened  and  broadened  with- 
out any  radical  change  of  nature,  but  child  piety  is  another  and 
very  dangerous  thing.  Children  have  a  strong  animal  and 
even  vegetable  nature,  upon  the  full  development  of  which  in 
its  season  as  much  depends  as  upon  the  growth  of  the  stalk 
which  is  to  bear  the  flower  and  fruit,  the  foundations  for  the 
house,  or  the  fundamental  to  accessory  muscles.  Here  again 
modern  pedagogy  and  psycho-genesis  have  a  vast  wealth  of 
confirmatory  material  which  can  only  be  referred  to  here. 

On  the  other  hand,  adolescence  is  marked  by  experiences 
and  temptations  unknown  before.  It  has  the  gravest  dangers. 
The  curve  of  criminality  rises  rapidly,  and  the  large  number 
of  most  frequent  commitments  to  various  penal  institutions  is 
greatest  in  the  later  teens.  It  is  the  time  when  the  ancestral 
traits  of  character  appear.  New  tendencies,  serious  plans  for 
the  future,  sympathy,  pity,  philanthropy,  and  the  social  feel- 
ings generally  are  either  newly  born  or  greatly  reen forced. 
This  is  the  time  when  Jesus's  character,  example,  and  teaching 
is  most  needed.  He  was  Himself  essentiallly  an  adolescent, 
appearing  in  the  temple  at  the  early  oriental  dawn  of  this 
period,  and  dying  hardly  past  the  age  of  its  completion  when 
the  apex  of  manhood  was  reached.  This  is  the  golden  period 
of  life  when  all  that  is  greatest  and  best  in  heart  and  will  are 
at  their  strongest.  If  the  race  ever  advances  to  higher  levels, 
it  must  be  by  the  increments  at  this  stage,  for  all  that  follows 
it  is  marked  by  decline.  Jesus  came  to  and  for  adolescents,  in 
a  very  special  and  peculiar  and  till  lately  not  understood  sense, 
and,  just  as  it  is  pedagogically  wrong  to  force  Him  upon  child- 
hood, it  is  wrong  not  to  teach  Him  to  adolescents.  Their  need 
is  so  great  as  to  constitute  a  mission  motive  of  even  more 
warmth  and  force  than  those  that  now  prevail.  No  matter  for 
what  creed,  race,  or  degree  of  civilization,  and  no  matter  what 
we  think  alx>ut  His  deity  or  even  the  veracity  of  the  record,  1 


l64  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

am  convinced  that  there  is  no  career  or  character  in  history 
or  hterature  that  so  fully  meets  the  deepest  needs,  supplements 
the  weaknesses  and  defects,  and  strengthens  all  the  good  im- 
pulses of  this  period  as  His.  This  I  can  urge  with  a  full  heart 
and  mind  upon  Turk,  Jew,  atheist,  idolater,  or  ethical  culturist, 
and  I  believe  that  everyone  well  trained  and  instructed  in  mod- 
ern psychology  and  pedagogy  could  do  the  same  even  though 
he  denied  all  the  supernatural  traits  and  incidents  in  the  life  of 
Jesus,  or  even  thought  him  a  myth.  He  could  still  say  this 
grand  tradition  or  ideal  is  true  to  the  human  heart  and  ex- 
perience because  it  finds  it  and  saves  it  better  than  anything 
else  at  this  stage. 

Here,  again.  Professor  Dawson's  curves  are  full  of  interest. 
If  it  is  surprising  to  see  the  development  of  Old  Testament 
interests  before  puberty,  and  that  under  conditions  which  lead 
us  to  believe  would  be  far  more  marked  if  the  Old  and  New 
had  an  equal  chance  with  the  children,  it  is  still  more  striking 
to  see  the  rapid  rise  of  the  curve  of  interest  in  Jesus  from 
fourteen  on  to  twenty,  with  which  year  his  census  stops.  Paul 
arouses  almost  no  interest  whatever  at  this  age  save  a  slight 
one  for  girls  after  eighteen.  There  is  little  in  his  life  save  the 
viper  incident  that  appeals  to  boyhood,  little  in  his  character 
and  less  in  all  his  writings  that  appeals  to  youth.  The  place 
for  stress  upon  his  work  is  later.  The  Gospels  are  essentially 
adolescent,  and  this  nascent  period  is  a  day  of  grace  which 
must  not  be  sinned  away.  No  age  is  capable  of  such  hearty 
unreserved  devotion  to  Jesus  as  adolescence.  The  sublimity  of 
His  teachings  and  His  motives,  the  meanings  of  many  of  the 
fifty  parables,  the  Messianic  expectation  now  realized  like  the 
prophetic  dreams  of  boyhood  at  the  advent  of  this  age,  the 
temptation,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the  characters  of  John 
and  Peter,  which  in  the  Dawson  census  are  preferred  even  to 
that  of  Jesus,  the  heroism  in  the  face  of  danger,  the  complete 
devotion  that  sacrifices  life  itself  for  what  is  dearer  than  life, 
the  slow  development  of  a  subjective  side  of  life  and  of  an 
inner  oracle  of  right  and  wrong,  the  tender  budding  conscience 
newly  polarized  to  right  and  wrong — all  these  in  their  depth 
and  inwardness  appease  a  real  psychic  hunger. 

Here,  again,  we  see  how  the  child  and  the  Bible  developed 
in  a  parallel  way.    Primitive  man,  like  the  boy  of  twelve,  lived 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        165 

in  a  world  in  which  the  senses  are  most  acute  and  keenly  dis- 
criminative and  receptive,  as  Gilbert  and  others  have  shown, 
and  when  the  efferent  or  motor  activities  are  more  varied  and 
sustained  than  at  any  other  time  of  life,  as  Johnson  has  made 
plain  in  his  studies  of  the  play  instinct.  Yet  all  this  harmony 
and  fitness  is  rudely  violated  by  current  methods,  one  of  which 
actually  reverses  this  order,  teaching  the  New  Testament  first 
and  the  Old  last,  and  the  other  with  a  seven-year  course  which 
hopelessly  confuses  this  plain  order  of  nature,  oscillating  with 
no  reason  or  motive  from  Old  to  New,  and  that,  too,  with  a 
wooden  uniformity  which  did  a  certain  good  service  in  its  day, 
but  which  is  directly  in  the  teeth  of  all  modern  elective 
and  even  individual  studies  that  have  transformed  secular 
teaching. 

III.  In  teaching  Jesus  His  humanity  should  be  first  incul- 
cated with  wise  reticence  concerning  His  deity  and  all  the 
supernatural  elements  in  the  Gospels.  With  little  children  un- 
der eight  or  nine  we  can  and  should  teach  at  Christmas  the 
nativity,  and  at  the  Lenten  season  ending  with  Easter,  the  death 
and  resurrection.  At  the  very  least,  whatever  the  parents' 
creed,  these  are  current  traditions  without  understanding  and 
feeling  which  the  child  is  unintelligent  and  ignorant  of  much 
that  is  best  in  art  and  literature.  There  is  a  distinct  age  when 
fairy  tales,  myths,  and  legends  involving  abundant  supernat- 
ural factors  are  needed  to  exercise  and  open  the  receptive 
powers  of  the  soul,  and  there  is  a  distinct  age  some  years  be- 
fore adolescence,  as  Barnes  has  shown,  when  doubt  begins  for 
the  average  child.  Santa  Claus  and  Jack  Frost  are  perhaps 
first  to  be  transplanted  from  the  realm  of  fact  to  that  of  imag- 
ination, and  the  question — Is  it  really  true? — may  be  hyper- 
trophied  and  made  abnormally  insistent  by  wrong  methods; 
and,  during  the  years  which  intervene  between  this  period  and 
adolescence,  the  human  Jesus  with  little  admixture  of  any 
thought  of  divinity  should  be  as  firmly  established  as  possible 
in  both  the  knowledge  and  affections.  Children  love  biogra- 
phy. A  personal  element  needs  to  animate  even  geography, 
and  earth  should  be  taught  as  the  home  of  man.  Here,  again, 
as  Dawson  urges  in  substance,  we  siiould  beware  of  investing 
Jesus  with  the  mysteries  of  the  Trinity  and  Incarnation.  Ix.'- 
cause  this  is  sure  to  detract  from  His  simplicity  and  natural- 


i66  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEMS 

ness  for  children.  He  must  be  given  a  secure  place  in  the 
earliest  affections  first. 

Sunday-school  teachers  are  especially  prone  to  violate  this 
rule.  They  cannot  wait  to  tell  the  little  ones  that  Jesus  is  the 
son  of  the  supreme  almighty  God,  that  He  came  down  from 
heaven  in  a  mysterious  way  and  died,  and  went  back  according 
to  a  preconceived  plan.  As  Bushnell  said  of  religious  teachers 
as  a  class,  they  are  prone  to  precipitate  haste  for  immediate 
results,  and  are  striving  to  reap  where  they  have  not  sown 
and  before  they  have  sown,  forgetting  the  law  of  first  the 
blade,  then  the  ear. 

The  results  of  this  method,  as  now  apparent  from  modern 
explorations  of  the  content  and  state  of  children's  minds  on  this 
subject,  are  sad  in  the  extreme.  Jesus  is  conceived  as,  if  not 
a  kind  of  centaur,  a  somewhat  ghostly  unreal  being,  human 
in  all  but  His  blood,  which  was  the  blue  ichor  of  heaven,  and 
gave  Him  an  indigo  or  cerulean  complexion,  as  some  say; 
God  above,  man  below,  or  God  within  masquerading  in  a  hu- 
man exterior,  or  sometimes  a  kind  of  docetic  phantom  and  oc- 
casionally, to  the  plastic  childish  fancy,  a  really  monstrous 
being.  He  is  to  be  approached  with  a  peculiar  attitude  and 
with  faculties  attuned  in  the  most  unnatural  way.  To  some 
children  He  is  a  mongrel  being  whose  deity  and  manhood 
crossed  have  neutralized  away  every  salient  or  interesting 
trait  in  both.  Some  describe  Him  as  transparent  or  blue,  with 
a  rainbow  around  His  head,  floating  in  the  air,  fond  of  night 
and  graveyards,  with  a  reservoir  of  divine  knowledge  and 
power,  which  it  was  very  kind  of  Him  to  repress;  but  all  of 
which  tend  to  remove  Him  from  that  close  natural  contact  with 
the  heart  without  which  the  teaching  of  Him  is  of  no  effect. 
Thus  teachers  take  away  the  human  Jesus  from  children;  for 
them  antipedagogical  methods  make  the  incarnation,  however 
it  be  interpreted,  of  no  effect,  and  we  are  no  longer  surprised 
that  John  and  Peter  are  more  real  and  interesting  to  children 
than  Jesus.  Many  Christologists  now  teach  that  Jesus  grew 
to  a  sense  of  immanent  deity  only  late  in  His  career;  but,  if  so, 
here  again  we  invert  nature  and  enforce  the  later  adult  in- 
sights upon  childhood — a  pedagogical  fault  which  is  like  be- 
ginning with  the  cube  root  or  the  calculus  instead  of  at  addi- 
tion or  subtraction,  and  ignores  the  necessity  of  first  filling  His 


THE   RELIGIOUS    TRAINING   OF    CHILDREN        167 

humanity  with  all  the  grandeur  it  can  hold,  so  that  belief  in 
deity,  if  it  unfold,  will  come  like  a  welcome  surplusage  or  over- 
flow of  all  that  our  conceptions  of  humanity  can  contain. 

Not  only  do  our  Sunday-school  methods  thus  tend  to  make 
the  Gospel  teaching  of  no  effect  by  their  traditions  and  w  eaken 
the  natural  power  of  the  plain  record  itself,  but  they  thus  lay 
deep  the  foundations  of  later  skepticism.  The  recent  convert 
or  the  warm-hearted  Christian  parent,  who  must  impart  his  or 
her  latest  insights  to  the  youngest,  who  has  just  attained  to  a 
deep  sense  of  deity  in  the  Bible  narrative,  lacks  the  reserve 
and  control  that  is  best  for  children.  Pedagogical  dedivinitiz- 
ing  or  making  purgation  of  the  traditional  superhuman  factors 
may  l3e  hard,  but  so  is  it  in  seed  time  to  wait  for  the  harvest ; 
but  the  teacher  must  not  forget  that  the  heart  of  early  adoles- 
cents can  only  go  out  toward  those  persons  and  objects  that 
are  most  real,  vivid,  and  human,  and  that  every  intimation  or 
suspicion  of  an  alien  element  is  sure  to  weaken  love.  Then, 
more  than  at  any  other  period,  the  child  is  a  humanist,  and, 
like  the  old  Roman,  deems  nothing  human  alien  from  himself. 
Then  he  is  least  interested  in  anything  either  super-  or  infra- 
human.  Thus,  everything  that  tends  to  make  Jesus  natural — 
all  comparisons  with  the  heroes  of  fact  or  fiction — are  helpful. 
If  we  ought  to  borrow  from  our  Catholic  friends  soiue  of  the 
more  vivid  presentations  of  wonders  and  mysteries  of  the 
saints  for  the  period  of  early  childhood,  here  all  Sunday- 
school  teachers  should  sit  at  the  feet  of  our  Unitarian  friends. 
A  careful  study  of  their  copious  Sunday-school  literature  con- 
vinces me  that,  whatever  else  may  be  said  of  it  or  of  them, 
nothing  so  fits  the  nature  and  needs  of  children  in  the  early 
adolescent  studies  of  Jesus  as  their  methods  and  ideas.  The 
amalgamation  of  God  and  man,  whether  it  result  in  an  alloy 
or  in  a  more  mechanical  adjunction  of  parts  like  the  prophet's 
image,  is  almost  certain  to  leave  in  the  mind  pictures,  thought 
forms,  and  concepts  that  have  to  be  reconstructed  later  if  the 
soul  is  not  stunted  but  grows  on  toward  maturity.  Concep- 
tions of  the  supernatural  will  thus  surely  be  weeded  out  when 
the  almost  inevitable  skepticism  of  manhood  conies,  and  this 
is  likely  to  make  more  or  less  havoc  with  the  mind  and  heart 
condemned  to  a  needless  pain  and  lalx)r  of  reconstruction. 
Hence,  it  is  a  pedagogical  lesson  of  great  moment  that  fixed 


i68  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

thought  forms  of  all  that  is  transcendent  or  supernal,  espe- 
cially those  which  pertain  to  reason  rather  than  to  imagina- 
tion, should  be  kept  plastic  as  long  as  possible  and  not  be 
allowed  to  harden  into  dogmatic  rigidity,  as  precocious  con- 
ceptions are  most  of  all  apt  to  do.  What  we  know  of  the 
adult  mind  shows  us  that  ideas  of  the  superhuman  formed  early 
in  life  are  more  likely  than  any  other  to  become  indurated  and 
encysted  in  a  way  w^hich  interferes  with  the  expansive  growth 
of  both  the  heart  and  the  head. 

IV.  Have  stories  predominate,  especially  for  young  chil- 
dren. What  may  be  called  the  Sunday-school  parts  of  both 
the  Old  and  the  New  Testament  are  mainly  narrative.  Events 
are  chronicled  in  the  temporal  order  in  which  they  occurred. 
The  relation  between  ancient  story  and  history  is  even  closer 
than  the  two  words  suggest.  A  panorama  of  events  with  most 
sequence  in  it,  where  the  items  are  causally  or  even  temporarily 
ordered,  has  a  strange  power  over  the  human  mind,  which 
these  days,  so  degenerate  in  this  respect,  know  little  of.  In 
ancient  times,  when  the  whole  body  of  culture  was  transmitted 
orally  and  in  the  form  of  tradition,  nothing  could  live  which 
had  not  vitality  enough  to  sustain  itself  in  memory,  while 
printing  keeps  alive  masses  of  more  or  less  worthless  matter, 
and  has  quite  transformed  the  scope  and  methods  of  memory. 
Alliteration,  assonance,  rhythm,  and  finally  rhyme,  had  once 
a  very  high  mnemonic  value  now  largely  lost.  We  have  in  a 
recent  book  an  admirable  description  of  a  typical  Oriental  story 
teller  in  the  Punjab.  Dull,  moping,  dreamy  eyed  during  the 
day,  at  night  when  the  camp  fires  were  lighted  he  began  to 
weave  the  wondrous  hypnotic  charm  of  "  once  upon  a  time," 
while  his  hearers,  like  those  of  ^neas  of  old,  omnes  intentique 
ora  tenehant.  He  warmed  himself  as  the  record  grew  ab- 
sorbing perhaps  till,  like  Plato's  rhapsodist  Ion,  or  like  Scho- 
penhauer's contemplator  of  a  great  work  of  art  in  the  acme 
of  his  hedonic  narcosis,  he  was  entranced  by  the  fervor  of  his 
own  eloquence  and  became  oblivious  of  everything  else.  Thus, 
we  may  conceive  the  function  of  the  ancient  minstrels  and 
bards ;  thus  the  elements  of  the  "  Iliad  "  and  "  Odyssey  "  were 
woven  into  effective  shape  before  Homer.  Ezra,  it  may  be, 
knew  how  to  conjure  with  this  charm  when  he  read  the  an- 
cient records  all  day  to  the  people  who  hung  upon  his  lips. 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        169 

Thus,  ancient  literature  lives  its  own  real  life  from  mouth  to 
ear,  and  is  not  banished  to  the  long  circuit  and  far  later  path- 
way of  transmission  from  hand  to  eye. 

I  do  not  believe  in  withholding  the  Bible  from  the  laity, 
but  I  sometimes  almost  wish  for  a  law  against  printing  some  of 
the  grandest  traditions  of  the  race.  There  is  no  rainbow  of 
promise  set  in  the  heavens  against  the  great  and  rising  flood 
of  printer's  ink,  which  threatens  an  evil  even  greater  than  that 
of  bringing  the  lightest  things  to  the  surface ;  namely,  that  of 
submerging  and  hiding  the  best.  Taine  classifies  literature 
according  to  its  natural  surviving  power,  beginning  with  the 
most  ephemeral,  like  the  daily  paper,  which  is  old  to-morrow, 
and  ending  with  the  great  classical  works,  which  interest  all 
men  and  women  of  all  ages  and  cultures.  I  sometimes  fear 
that  modern  educational  publishers  are  in  danger  of  meriting 
a  condemnation  akin  to  scribes,  Talmudists,  the  Epigoni,  who 
multiply  trivialities,  notes,  comments,  and  puerilities  of  old 
works  and  devices,  and  launch  cheap  novelties  that  distract 
us  from  the  best.  The  average  day  or  Sunday-school  teacher 
who  writes  new  songs,  poems,  stories,  and  prints  them  as  at- 
tractively as  old  illuminators  magnified  the  letter  at  the  expense 
of  the  spirit,  are  in  my  judgment  doing  a  sorry  service  for  the 
very  cause  of  childhood  and  education  they  think  to  serve. 
Let  me  tell  the  stories  and  I  care  not  who  writes  the  text- 
books. 

Children's  stories  are  very  simple,  but  objective.  They 
should  be  graphic,  serial,  with  the  incidents  perhaps  connected, 
as  Professor  Palmer  has  shown,  with  a  long  string  of  simple 
copulas,  so  that  the  child  story  as  he  shows  is,  in  this  sense, 
essentially  Homeric.  At  the  very  first  many  obvious  and 
commonplace  things  will  do.  It  is  well  to  match  the  object 
or  daily  experience  and  the  words,  but  when  the  soul  learns 
what  speech  can  do  and  takes  flight  in  language,  then  the 
imagination  takes  up  the  harp  and  sheds  a  little  of  the 
light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land,  and  makes  the  child 
a  possible  citizen  of  all  times  and  a  spectator  of  all  events.  A 
good  raconteur  does  not  need  to  get  down  on  all  fours  to  the 
child,  but  can  bring  the  child  farther  up  toward  his  level  by 
his  art  than  by  any  other.  Moreover,  we  talk  much  alx>ut 
mental  unities,  correlation  and  coordination  of  studies  to  knit 


I70  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

the  various  factors  of  the  mind  together,  so  that  we  can  com- 
mand our  resources  and  bring  them  all  to  any  point ;  but  I  urge 
that  nothing  organizes  more  complete  unity  out  of  many 
diverse  elements  than  a  good  story.  The  child's  unities  are 
dramatic,  and  the  good  story  teller  does  all  that  Plato  ascribed 
to  the  good  musician.  He  knits  the  soul  into  cohesions  and 
cadences  it  to  virtue  by  the  endless  repetitions,  refrains,  and 
intonations  that  children  love  and  thrive  by. 

Hence  I  plead  for  a  new  profession — that  of  the  story  teller 
in  the  Sunday-school,  who  has  practiced  on  the  standard  tales, 
told  them  to  various  grades  and  had  them  told  back  again,  un- 
til they  are  as  well  developed  in  his  or  her  mind  as  the  role  of 
an  actor  in  a  play  with  a  long  run,  who  never  loses  rapport  for 
an  instant  with  his  audience  and  can  preestimate  the  value  of 
every  point  or  even  gag  in  it.  Can  we  not  have  in  the  Sunday- 
school  these  Bible  bards,  though  each  have  a  very  small  kit  of 
stories,  which  they  can  tell  from  long  practice  better  than  any- 
one else?  Rein  makes,  I  think,  thirty-six  Old  Testament  sto- 
ries about  which  he  would  have  the  third  year  of  secular 
school  life  focus.  Others  make  many  more.  The  best  test  I 
know  of  in  the  teacher  of  young  children  is  a  power  thus  to 
catch  and  hold  the  attention  of  her  restless  group,  well  com- 
pared to  scores  of  corks  in  a  washtub  to  be  kept  under  water 
by  a  teacher  who  has  but  ten  fingers.  A  good  narrator  can  do 
almost  anything  with  children.  He  can  repeat  the  magic  of 
the  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,  who  charmed  them  all  from  their 
homes  by  the  incantation  of  his  magic  flute.  Such  a  teacher 
has  recovered  for  a  world  to  which  it  was  lost  the  true  pipe 
of  Pan,  which  reveals  the  secrets  of  the  world,  and  the  lute  of 
Apollo,  which  constrains  all  to  pause  and  listen. 

Of  course  I  would  not  eliminate  some  memory  work  on 
well-chosen  passages,  but  these  should  be  not  indiscriminate 
and  almost  random,  after  the  fashion  of  the  modern  "  golden 
texts,"  but  for  young  children  should  chiefly  appeal  to  prac- 
tical morality  like  proverbs  or  to  the  sentiment  of  poetic 
sublimity ;  for  older  children  texts  expressing  a  greater  variety 
and  depth  of  sentiment  should  be  added.  There  should,  of 
course,  be  something  in  the  way  of  preparation,  but  fully  as 
much  in  the  way  of  review.  For  children,  archaeology,  philol- 
ogy, contemporary  history,  and  results  of  modern  research  and 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN       i?* 

scholarship  generally  should  have  a  very  subordinate  place. 
Notes,  lesson  books,  and  helps  of  all  but  the  simplest  kind  are 
a  delusion  and  a  snare,  for  they  distract  interest,  break  up 
unity,  and  morselize  everything.  A  simple  map  or  two  and  a 
very  few  pictures  are  sufficient.  While  the  cheap  prints  now 
possible  of  the  great  pictures  of  Christ,  Mary,  and  other  per- 
sonages in  the  Bible  may  be  shown  together  with  illustrations 
of  the  temple,  ark,  costumes,  etc.,  we  must  not  forget  that  the 
modern  picture  cult  may  easily  become  excessive,  and  interfere 
with  the  development  of  the  imagination.  A  few  rude  cuts 
seem  to  start  this  faculty  to  do  better,  but  too  many  clip  the 
wings  of  fancy  and  sterilize  the  wonderful  creative  power  of 
childish  reverie.  In  all  this  we  have  the  difficulty  of  deter- 
mining just  in  what  sense  and  how  far  the  child  repeats  the 
history  of  the  race,  what  stage  of  psycho-genesis  corresponds 
to  that  of  the  old  story  teller ;  but  let  us  not  forget  how  much 
religion  owes  to  the  imagination,  which  is  the  organ  of  every- 
thing not  seen,  which  has  given  all  the  form  they  possess  to 
the  events  of  ancient  history  and  to  the  transcendental  life  as 
well.  Even  for  the  apostles  and  the  great  missionaries,  preach- 
ing consisted  in  simply  telling  the  old  story,  which  has  not  lost 
any  of  the  ancient  power  inherent  in  it,  although  we  have  lost 
the  psychic  orchestration  to  set  it  in  scene  befitting  our  stage 
of  civilization  and  the  degree  of  the  hearer's  development. 

In  the  piles  of  Sunday-school  literature  I  have  looked  over 
in  recent  years,  I  find  happily  among  many  better  things  the 
most  antipedagogic  methods  known  in  the  history  of  educa- 
tion. One  requires  children  of  seven  and  eight  to  memorize 
the  "  six  s's  " — sin,  Saviour,  salvation,  sacrament,  sanctifica- 
tion,  and  spiritualization,  which  with  all  the  teacher's  gloss 
can  mean  little  more  than  abracadabra,  and  is  a  kind  of  mind- 
breaking  process,  the  cruelty  of  which  is  seen  just  in  propor- 
tion to  our  knowledge  of  the  soul.  The  kindergarten  processes 
illustrate  the  worst  side  of  the  American  aberrations  of  Froe- 
bel.  Sheep's  wool  is  shown,  handled,  sheep  are  drawn,  pic- 
tures of  flocks  of  them  are  shown  and  symbolic  meanings 
hinted  at,  although  for  the  child  happily  a  sheep  is  a  sheep  for 
all  that.  A  yoke  is  drawn  or  made  of  sticks,  a  door,  a  heart, 
a  rock,  an  anchor,  a  crown,  a  cross,  wheat,  a  harp,  a  palm, 
a  trumpet,  lamp,  staff,  shield,  dove,  an  <»pen  l)<M)k,  the  word 


172  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

prayer  is  written  up,  down,  right  and  left,  a  pyramid  with 
twelve  steps,  each  of  which  is  a  symbolic  quality.  One  inter- 
mediate class  is  required  to  memorize  nine  abstract  moral 
qualities  in  a  certain  order,  a  list  of  dates,  initial  letters  sig- 
nifying either  adjectives  or  the  first  words  of  texts,  various 
crude  blackboard  drawings,  with  ointment,  fish,  pearls,  lilies, 
stars,  vines,  boats,  graves,  pools,  harvest  scenes,  sand  work, 
kindergarten,  sewing  cards,  and  so  on  de  omnibus  rebus  et 
quibusdam  aliis.  All  these  things  are  offered  to  the  child  al- 
most at  random  as  if  in  hopes  that  the  good  Lord,  who  in  the 
beginning  brought  order  out  of  chaos,  will  here  repeat  the 
great  cosmic  ordering  in  each  mind.  Children  of  ten  are  asked 
to  name  six  traits  in  the  character  of  the  Saviour,  to  tell  the 
five  things  essential  for  the  Lord's  Supper,  to  repeat  six  ad- 
jectives designating  attributes  of  Jesus,  to  watch  against  eight 
things ;  sermonettes  are  preached  on  symbolic  meanings  of  the 
phrases,  "He  ran  before,"  "  He  saw  Him,"  "  passed  through," 
"  knew  Him  not,"  "  abode  with  Him,"  "  they  murmured." 
Parallel  passages  are  sought  for  "  knowing  the  time,"  "  rolled 
away  the  stone,"  "  took  bread,"  "  watched  one  hour,"  They 
are  taught  how  God  is  in  the  mind,  heart,  life,  and  memory; 
how  God  is  living,  holy,  present,  mighty;  how  He  must  be 
served  holily,  seriously,  reverently,  prayerfully,  etc.  These 
are  systems  actually  in  use,  and  nothing  in  my  judgment  could 
be  better  calculated  to  disintegrate  the  mind,  to  make  it  like  a 
well-used  piece  of  blotting  paper,  to  confuse  the  conscience 
until  it  is  like  a  magnetic  needle,  the  orientation  of  which  is 
lost,  so  that  anything  can  seem  casuistically  right,  to  sterilize 
the  heart,  and  to  give  the  natural  interest  which  the  child  feels 
in  religious  matters  immunity  against  its  infection  by  vac- 
cinating with  doses  of  attentuated  culture.^ 

'  Elsewhere  we  are  told  that  the  up-to-date  teacher  of  Sunday-school  teachers, 
who  assumes  the  soundness  of  current  fundamental  pedagogical  and  psychological 
principles,  has  a  vast  repertory  of  devices  and  educational  knick-knackery  and 
jim-crackery.  The  superintendent,  like  the  President  of  the  United  States,  must 
have  a  cabinet  to  advise  him.  If  the  lesson  is  on  the  seven-year-old  King  Joash, 
he  generates  interest  by  calling  to  the  platform  a  seven-year-old  boy  and  asks  the 
school  if  he  would  make  a  good  president.  In  his  quest  for  object  lessons  or  per- 
haps at  a  platform  review,  he  illustrates  the  unseen  but  not  unfelt  power  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  by  a  magnet  of  iron;  the  blinding  power  of  lies  and  other  sins  by  a 
veil;  the  complexity  of  the  human  body  by  the  watch  vdth  long-drawn-out  parallels. 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        173 

The  kindergarten  in  this  country  is  in  a  transition  state. 
The  conservative  and  ultra-orthodox  disciples  of  Froebel  here 
have  materialized  his  principles  until,  as  I  have  elsewhere 
shown,  they  have  reversed  many,  if  not  most,  of  their  master's 
basal  conceptions.  The  recent  alliance  between  this  element 
and  the  Sunday-school  has  produced  some  unique  products. 
The  disciples  are  represented  by  twelve  tiny  sticks  on  end ;  the 
house  of  many  mansions  is  made  first  for,  then  by,  the  children 
by  piling  six  kindergarten  blocks ;  a  paper  boat  is  sailed  on  a 
sea  of  green  tissue  crumpled  for  waves ;  vines,  thorns,  thistles, 
are  cut  from  the  field  and  laid  on  the  table;  wheat  heads  are 
stuck  in  the  sand,  on  which  a  tumbling  block  house  is  built 
beside  another  on  a  stone;  the  widow's  mites  are  two  tiny 
stones  laid  on  a  sheet  of  paper.  This  trivialized  and  puerile 
busy  work  no  doubt  keeps  the  young  children  quiet  by  giving 
them  something  to  do,  but  like  all  the  great  body  of  Sunday- 
school  artifacts  and  products  of  premature  or  overclassifica- 
tion,  sermonesque  methods  of  keeping  tab  on  great  subjects 
by  enumerating  adjectives,  verbs,  or  abstract  nouns,  it  illus- 
trates a  story  of  Lowell's  of  a  poultry  raiser  who  by  dint  of 
much  crude  chemical  experimentation  and  reasoning  worked 
out  and  published  a  conclusion  that  he  had  discovered  that 

The  leader  must  be  a  good  blackboardist  and  know  how  to  sketch  crosses,  crowns, 
ships,  serpents,  lamps,  and  symbols.  The  teacher  must  know  the  birthdays  of 
every  memter  of  his  class;  induce  one  pupil  to  influence  another,  follow  up  the 
sick  and  "shut  in";  have  them  kneel  in  a  mathematical  circle  for  prayer.  He 
must  plant  com  and  the  dahlia  bulb  and  expatiate  on  the  fact  that  each  cannot 
produce  the  other  to  illustrate  that  what  we  sow  we  must  reap.  He  shows  a  blank 
book  to  impress  the  idea  that  each  day  is  a  page.  The  leader  calls  a  boy  to  the 
platform,  blindfolds  him,  gives  him  one  end  of  a  thread  and  leads  him  about,  and 
then  makes  him  break  it  to  illustrate  how  Samuel  followed  the  Lord.  He  brings 
in  a  rat  trap  to  illustrate  Satan's  snares.  All  the  teachers  file  up  and  wet  their 
handkerchiefs  in  cologne  and  wave  them  to  illustrate  Mary's  ointment.  He  burns 
a  match  to  show  how  the  tongue  is  a  fire;  brings  the  plate  holder  of  a  phonograph; 
plays  on  the  piano  to  illustrate  that  life  is  a  harmony;  takes  great  heed  of  col- 
lections and  interpolates  frequent  treasurer's  reports,  is  very  strong  in  keeping 
order  and  rich  in  methods;  has  premiums  and  rewards  and  makes  entertainments 
and  sociables  a  field  where  novelties  are  assiduously  studied.  The  catalogue  of 
the  library  must  be  graded,  and  the  librarian  must  love  books  and  children  and 
be  well  up  in  the  methmls  of  cataloguing  and  keeping  records.  Perhaps  there 
must  be  a  hospital  comer  for  children  who  have  sick  hands,  feet,  tem[)cr,  and 
tongues.  Are  not  all  these  things  recorde<l  in  the  rhn^nicles  of  the  trilx-?-— (G.  M. 
Ikiynton:  The  Model  Sunday  School.  Cong.  Pub.  ('o.,  Boston,  iH<)2,  175  p.  A. 
F,  SchaufTler:  Ways  of  Working,  Wilde,  Boston,  n;oi.) 


174  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

celery  prepared  in  a  prescribed  way  had  the  most  marvelous 
effect  in  fattening  ducks  for  the  market.  It  was  cheap,  easy 
to  digest,  produced  meat  of  the  rarest  flavor,  etc.  The  only 
possible  objection  to  it  was  that  ducks  would  not  touch  it,  they 
were  so  foolish.  I  once  saw  in  the  Paris  Zoo  a  vast  row  of 
duckg  so  caged  that  they  could  not  stand  or  move,  and  into 
the  mouths  of  which  this  or  some  other  food  was  hourly  in- 
jected with  a  huge  syringe,  until  they  could  hold  no  more. 
The  fatty  degeneration  that  resulted  was  thought  a  triumph 
of  the  poultry  man's  art  for  the  epicure.  This  is  not  the  way 
to  prepare  children  for  God.  Children  suffer  in  soul  no  less 
and  in  ways  as  closely  related  as  is  the  mind  to  the  body  by 
forced  feeding,  but,  although  they  may  develop  memory 
pouches  for  matter  ever  so  alien  to  their  needs,  the  healthy 
mind  will  not  assimilate  it.  A  cogent  and  new  argument  for 
the  vitality  of  Christianity  looms  up  in  its  power  to  survive 
methods  so  bad.  The  true  shepherd  of  youthful  souls  no 
longer  believes  children  depraved,  and  does  not  interpret 
Wordsworth's  preexistence  conceptions  as  meaning  that  the 
child  is  an  embryo  theologian  or  moralist,  but  is  sufficiently 
anchored  in  common  sense  to  steer  clear  of  extreme  fads  and 
vagaries,  while  keeping  an  open  mind  for  all  that  is  good  in 
the  new. 

V.  I  plead  for  very  select  tales  and  other  matters  with  a 
moral  bearing  from  non-Bible  sources.  Rein  would  center  the 
first  year's  work  in  the  secular  schools  around  twelve  of 
Grimm's  tales;  the  second  about  Crusoe;  the  third  about  Bible 
stories.  Ahrens,  the  German  writer,  pleads  for  the  admission 
of  well-chosen  tales  from  the  classical  antiquity  as  a  kind  of 
limbo  school  Bible  between  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament 
for  Sunday-school  work.  Bigg  urges  that  an  "  ethnic  Bible  " 
be  composed  from  a  slowly  elaborated  canon  of  the  best  tales 
from  ancient  myth  and  classical  and  modern  literature  and 
history.  The  French  Government  authorized  years  ago  an  ad- 
mirable manual  designed  to  teach  personal  and  civic  virtue  by 
illustrious  examples,  and  now  there  are  many  of  these.  Mr. 
Frothingham's  child  book  of  religion  supplies  a  few  admirable 
tales.  Choice  fables  from  ^sop  down  to  La  Fontaine  and 
Schleiermacher,  selections  from  the  Round  Table  cycle,  from 
Homer,  Virgil,  Herodotus,  a  few  of  Plato's  myths,  Dante,  now 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        i75 

briefly  told  with  admirable  charts  in  several  manuals,  some  of 
the  Norse  and  Germanic  tales  of  Edda  and  Niebelungen,  such 
as  Balder,  which  I  have  tried  myself  with  good  results,  selec- 
tions perhaps  from  Andersen.  Some  or  all  of  these  might  be 
used.  For  some  hundreds  of  years  the  Bolandists  have  been 
writing  the  lives  of  the  saints,  now  many  thousand  in  number, 
whom  the  church  has  canonized  for  eminent  virtue.  Baring 
Gould  has  selected  and  digested  some  of  these  in  his  six  vol- 
umes, and  Mrs.  Chenoweth  and  others  have  retold  them  ef- 
fectively for  Protestant  children.  Comte  renamed  every  day 
of  the  year  in  his  positivist  calendar  after  some  great  thinker 
in  science  and  philosophy  in  imitation  of  the  saint  days.  Many 
of  these  stories  have  a  tinsel  air  of  ultra-saccharine  goodness 
about  them  that  hardly  fits  the  modern  or,  at  least,  the  Protes- 
tant, child  with  his  early  critical  spirit,  but  reconstructed,  nat- 
uralized, and  selected  hagiology  will  yield  a  precious  deposit 
of  golden  deeds  and  heroic  self-sacrifice  here  stored  up  as  in 
a  great  arsenal. 

The  school  itself  in  many  places  is  now  assuming  the  work 
of  Bible  teaching.  The  London  School  Board  lately  had  a  full 
syllabus  of  it  occupying  half  or  three  fourths  of  an  hour  daily, 
with  semiannual  examinations.  It  is,  of  course,  undenomina- 
tional. Prussia  requires  at  least  five  hours  a  week  of  religious 
instruction  by  trained  teachers  for  eight  years  by  the  method 
of  narration  chiefly,  with  subsequent  discussion  and  some  mem- 
ory work.  The  Schulz-Klix  "  Biblische  Lesebuch  "  reached 
its  fifty-third  edition  in  1896.  In  the  schools  of  France,  where 
no  religious  instruction  is  permitted,  every  Thursday  entire 
is  a  holiday,  so  that  parents  can  have  their  children  taught 
the  religion  they  prefer  outside  of  the  school,  but  the  instruct- 
ors, although  selected  by  their  respective  churches,  must,  as  in 
Germany,  pass  a  state  examination  as  a  test  of  competency. 
To  these  we  might  add  several  well-arranged  little  haiullux)ks 
like  that  of  the  women  of  the  Chicago  lulucational  I'nioii  or 
of  Professor  Moulton,  containing  select  readings  from  the 
Bible  for  the  school.  All  this  work,  of  course,  is  inidcnom- 
inational,  and  the  Bible  is  taught  as  literature  and  history. 

This  new  reciprocity  of  subject  matter  between  Siniday- 
and  day-school  cannot  fail  to  help  both.  The  matter  is  a 
great  addition  to  the  latter,  and  the  former  is  incited  to  better 


176  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

methods.  Moreover,  a  great  basal  principle  is  involved.  The 
Bible  has  come  to  be  held  superior  to  all  other  literature  in 
Christendom  because  of  its  merits.  The  world  is  more  and 
more  reluctant  to  give  its  highest  place  to  men  or  books  be- 
cause of  their  pedigree  or  origin.  Scripture,  we  must  not  for- 
get, became  Bible  by  inherent  merit  and  worth,  and  by  this 
title  alone  it  can  remain  so.  Only  those  who  know  something 
of  the  power  of  the  best  pagan  classics  and  of  the  ethnic  Bibles, 
who  have  had  some  sympathetic  presentation  even  of  the  Gos- 
pel of  Buddha,  the  Bibles  of  Confucianism  and  Mohammed- 
ism,  as  well  as  of  the  great  literary  monuments,  can  judge 
comparatively  of  the  merits  of  our  Bible.  I  have  not  a  shadow 
of  doubt  or  fear  that  it  will  survive  this  inevitable  and  impend- 
ing test,  and  that  all  comparisons  may  be  safely  challenged. 
But,  further  yet,  only  thus  can  it  rest  upon  a  solid  and  secure 
foundation  of  reverence  in  the  individual  soul.  Abundant 
answers  to  syllabi  indicate  that,  where  children's  minds  have 
been  fairly  exposed  to  the  contagions  of  all  these  sources,  their 
suffrages  confirm  the  choice  of  Christendom.  There  are,  how- 
ever, valuable  lessons,  religious  as  well  as  intellectual  and 
moral,  taught  from  these  ah-extra  sources,  which  are  not  con- 
tained in  Scripture,  and  for  which  by  the  narrative  method 
there  is  time  even  in  the  Sunday-school. 

VL  Nature  Teaching. — This  is  now  urged  with  great 
force  upon  the  secular  school,  and  there  are  many  new  and 
most  hopeful  beginnings,  but  I  plead  for  at  least  a  small  place, 
wherever  the  conditions  are  favorable,  for  inculcating  nature  as 
a  means  of  developing  the  religious  sentiments.  These  rest  on 
awe  and  reverence  and  a  sensus  numinis,  which  makes  the  un- 
devout  astronomer  and,  we  might  add  now,  the  irreverent 
chemist  and  biologist,  mad.  I  would  have  no  technical  teach- 
ing of  either  methods  or  names  in  the  Sunday-school,  but  a 
mythic  or,  rather,  poetic  standpoint  developed  which  will  en- 
courage the  child  to  that  love  of  nature  out  of  which  have 
rolled  not  only  the  burdens  of  Bibles,  but  the  best  impulses 
that  have  created  art,  science,  and  religion.  Beda  looked 
through  his  rude  telescope  to  turn  aside  and  write  a  gloria  in 
excelsis.  Renan  says  Judaism  owes  almost  its  existence  to  the 
mountain  phenomena  and  experiences  at  Sinai.  The  poet,  who 
plucked  the  flower  from  the  crannied  wall,  perhaps  felt  the 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        i77 

same  pagan  worship  which  in  his  remote  ancestors  was  turned 
to  Ygdrasil,  and  earHer  yet  to  the  Dodona  oak.  The  sky  and 
sea  have  had  great  agency  in  shaping  man's  rehgious  instincts. 
It  is  to  avoid  the  sad  havoc  which  befalls  every  mind  that 
thinks  there  can  be  an  opposition  between  science  and  religion, 
both  of  which  are  expressions  of  the  same  deity.  Just  as  I 
plead  elsewhere  for  a  good  course  in  science  in  every  theolog- 
ical school,  so  here  I  urge  that  even  the  rudiments  of  science 
have  a  direct  effect.  On  their  foundations,  in  part,  true  re- 
ligion must  forever  rest,  and  the  Sunday-school  cannot  afford 
to  entirely  neglect  them. 

VII.  I  plead  for  more  purely  intellectual  instruction,  first, 
for  the  Old  Testament  in  its  season,  then  during  the  earlier 
years  of  adolescence  for  the  New.  American  teachers  are 
prone  to  feel  that  the  great  disparity  between  the  Bible  and 
other  literature  indicates  a  radical  difference  in  the  method  of 
teaching.  This  is  the  reiterated  plea  by  which  the  systems 
now  in  vogue  resist  proposed  improvements.  There  is  a  feel- 
ing that  in  the  soul  of  the  child  once  brought  in  contact  with 
the  basal  truths  of  religion  some  mysterious,  if  not  magical, 
process  occurs  of  a  totally  different  kind  from  the  glow  and 
tingle  evoked  by  any  secular  literature.  Almost  any  text,  in- 
cident, picture,  or  name,  it  is  felt,  may  be  reen forced  super- 
naturally  by  the  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  be  made  a 
means  of  salvation.  Hence,  the  Sunday-school  teacher  feels 
that  this  heavenly  muse  is  behind  him  seconding  his  efforts 
and  supplementing  all  his  intellectual  defects  of  knowledge  and 
even  preparation,  provided  only  he  puts  a  heart  of  fervid  unc- 
tion into  his  work,  so  that  prayer  is  perhaps  a  more  important 
preparation  for  it  than  careful  study.  He  no  longer  exjjects 
to  see  miracles  in  the  natural  world,  but  is  always  alert  await- 
ing sudden  transformations  of  mind,  heart,  and  will  in  his 
pupils  at  any  moment.  Many  teachers  are  thinking  of  cither 
conversions  or  direct  moral  effects  far  more  than  of  solid  ex- 
amination knowledge  of  Scripture. 

There  is  a  radical  error  here  involved.  The  psychologist 
knows  that  laws  of  the  soul  are  now  no  more  suspended  than 
those  of  nature:  that  to  secure  any  result  there  must  be  a  care- 
ful study  of  the  ways  of  adapting  means  to  the  end,  and  the 
more  judicious  and  wise  the  former  the  better  will  be  the  lat- 
13 


178  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ter.  Nothing  would  seem  more  obvious  than  the  law  that  to 
best  produce  its  best  results,  Scripture  must  first  be  well 
known.  The  deplorable  fact  now  generally  admitted  is  that 
children  go  through  our  entire  courses  and  emerge  with  an 
almost  incredible  ignorance  of  the  Bible.  On  all  sides  we  hear 
this  recognized  and  deplored,  and  I  forbear  to  multiply  inci- 
dents at  hand.  In  this  respect  we  have  very  much  to  learn 
from  other  religions.  The  best  Jewish  Sunday-schools  I  have 
seen,  teach  not  only  Old  Testament  history,  but  Jewish  history 
down  to  the  present  time,  and  also  the  Hebrew  language.  Pro- 
motions are  made  by  examination  only.  A  council  of  the  best 
available  men  sits  in  another  room  in  the  temple  during  the 
entire  session,  discussing  ways,  means,  teachers,  to  which  in- 
dividual pupils  are  sent  for  reproof,  reward,  suggestions  about 
health,  to  the  physician,  etc.  I  once  followed  one  of  these 
courses  with  considerable  detail  and  with  great  edification. 
The  best  Catholic  schools  I  know  incite  the  children  by  com- 
petition and  prizes,  and  award  diplomas  for  the  completion  of 
the  course,  which  is  marked,  as  in  so  many  other  religious 
bodies,  by  confirmation.  In  Germany  the  accredited  teacher 
of  the  Jewish,  Catholic,  and  Protestant  children  pursues  meth- 
ods essentially  like  those  approved  by  the  secular  school  for 
teaching  literature  and  history.  Those  who  object  to  these 
systems  because  they  do  not  turn  out  church  members  imply 
that  a  scholarly  system  is  more  unwise  than  an  unscholarly 
one.  Is  it  not  rather  plain  that  we  want  all  this  and  some- 
thing more,  and  not  something  less?  I  urge  that  a  good 
teacher,  even  though  not  a  church  member,  may  fill  a  very 
important  place  in  the  Sunday-school.  Is  anyone  so  ignorant 
as  to  suppose  that  these  methods  of  teaching  are  the  cause  of 
the  small  church  attendance  in  Berlin?  If  so,  let  us  reverse 
our  efforts,  and,  if  not  close  the  Sunday-schools,  at  least  stem 
this  rising  demand  for  better  pedagogic  devices,  and  go  back 
to  the  catechetical  method  of  our  forefathers  and  the  time 
when  a  far  larger  proportion  of  Sunday-school  children  were 
converted  than  now.  It  is  possible  to  stir  the  sentiments  su- 
perficially, more  intensely,  almost  inversely  to  the  amount  of 
knowledge.  Rude  people  and  ages  are  impressionable  and  sus- 
ceptible to  a  degree  which  vanishes  directly  as  culture  increases. 
The  objection  I  combat,  therefore,  really  means,  when  psychol- 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        i79 

ogists  interpret  it,  a  plea  for  a  return  to  a  primitive  condition 
which  very  few  indeed  here  now  consciously  advocate. 

VIIL  The  miraculous  should  have  a  prominent  place,  for 
it  has  a  great  function.  The  pedagogical  aspect  of  the  super- 
natural depends  upon  its  psychology,  and  both  represent  unique 
standpoints  so  far  quite  unknown  to  both  the  scientist  and  the 
theologian.  It  is  neither  foolishness  to  be  eliminated  and  no 
whit  less  is  it  dogma  or  even  necessarily  fact,  but  something 
higher  and  more  vital.  Man  lives  in  two  worlds — one  the  me- 
chanical world  of  matter,  force  and  law,  of  the  things  of  sense 
and  physical  science;  and  another  world  of  things  imagined 
rather  than  objectively  known,  believed  rather  than  proved, 
the  world  of  poetry,  of  faith  and  hope.  The  one  is  the  world 
of  matter,  whether  crass  or  subtle  as  ether;  the  other  is  the 
super-  or  extra-natural  world.  The  criterion  of  one  is  ob- 
jective existence;  of  the  other  subjective  need.  In  the  one  the 
head,  in  the  other  the  heart,  predominates.  The  organ  of  one 
is  logic;  that  of  the  other  feeling  and  sentiment.  From  an- 
other aspect  we  may  call  one  immanent,  and  the  other  the 
transcendent  world.  If  we  take  the  larger  view  of  nature, 
Schleiermacher  is  right  in  urging  that  there  is  nothing  so  nat- 
ural as  the  supernatural.  Faith,  perhaps  one  of  the  mightiest 
of  all  words,  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence 
of  things  not  seen,  cannot  be  sharply  distinguished  from  the 
imagination,  which  is  the  most  creative  function  of  the  soul. 

I  here  carefully  avoid  a  favorite  occupation  of  many  mod- 
ern psychologists,  who  love  to  compare  and  analogize  these 
two  as  both  projections  of  the  ego,  using  the  processes  in- 
volved in  the  cognition  of  matter  to  crassify  and  lend  reality 
to  things  spiritual,  using  the  latter  to  lend  a  higher  degree  of 
ideality  to  matter  and  force.  Labor  in  this  field  is  a  life  voca- 
tion now  for  many,  but  for  reasons  I  have  elsewhere  shown 
has  subordinate  interest  for  me.^  The  history  of  thought 
shows  that  these  two  universes  have  always  tended  to  be  in- 
versely as  each  other.  A  positivistic  mind  and  age  has  little 
room  for  spiritual  verities.  In  it  the  transcendent  world  fades 
and  perhaps  quite  vanishes.  In  periods  of  the  opposite  bias 
men   forget  their  environment  and   are  absorbed   in  ecstatic 

'  G.  S.  Hall:  College  Philosophy.     The  Forum,  June,  1900,  vol.  29,  pp.  409-422. 


i8o  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

contemplation  of  far-away  realities.  As  heaven  and  hell  grow 
real,  finite  existence  loses  interest  only  to  regain  it  with  great 
emphasis  when  the  objects  of  faith  fade  away.  This  is  the 
soul's  double  housekeeping;  here  is  the  world  of  sight,  yonder 
in  the  Jenseits  of  faith.  The  ascetic  neoplatonist  seer  sacri- 
fices all  that  makes  the  present  natural  life  dear  for  these  other 
world  interests. 

Perhaps  animism  marks  the  beginning  of  the  great  tran- 
scendent cult,  for  it  ascribes  a  second  interior  or  separable  self 
to  objects.  Belief  in  spirits,  ghosts,  ancestors,  mahatmas,  an- 
gels, Zeus,  Brahma,  all  conceptions  of  preexistence  or  reincar- 
nation, all  beliefs  in  post-mortem  existence,  where  souls  are 
herded,  gods  and  demigods  of  every  degree — all  these  are  ex- 
pressions not  of  objective  reality,  but  of  the  needs  of  the  human 
soul.  They  live,  move,  and  have  their  being  in  the  tran- 
scendentalizing  factors  of  faith  and  poetic  imagination,  and 
here  alone  they  will  be  real  forever.  The  soul  is  their  bearer, 
and  in  a  degree  far  more  pregnant  than  Schopenhauer's  famous 
text,  "  the  world  is  my  concept,"  the  modern  psychologist 
knows  and  says  "  the  spiritual  world  is  my  feeling  instincts 
uttered  and  expressed,"  Not  by  conscious  purpose  or  design 
does  man  make  his  own  gods ;  they  are  rather  the  objectiviza- 
tion  of  his  desires,  innate  longings,  unconscious  deposits  of 
fancy.  Nay,  rather,  they  are  not  even  these  so  much  as  the 
slow  phyletic  evolutions  of  the  race  soul.  They  fit  his  nature 
and  needs  because  they  sprang  from  them.  They  stir  the  deep- 
est regions  of  the  soul  because  they  are  its  oldest  formations. 
They  seem  rnore  real  than  matter,  and  are  nearer  and  truer 
because  they  are  made  of  soul  stuff  and  not  of  sense  stuff. 
The  original  theological  faculties  of  the  soul  were  mythopeic, 
and  Jacobi  was  right  in  a  sense  which  modern  psycho-genesis 
makes  vastly  larger  than  his  "  the  heart  makes  the  theologian." 
Pectoral  theology  is  the  true  theology.  Schleiermacher,  the 
greatest  genius  of  modern  times  in  this  field,  was  charged  to 
the  saturation  point  with  this  idea  in  his  Reden,  and  the  best 
part  of  his  masterpiece  on  faith  defines  all  religious  verities 
as  the  formulations  of  feeling.  True  religion  in  even  a  higher 
degree  than  poetry  or  art  is  creative. 

When  that  great  day  shall  dawn,  wherein  the  artist,  who 
creates  by  efferent  willed  activities,  takes  his  rightful  place 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        i8i 

above  the  professor  who  merely  knows,  reHgion  will  be  re- 
vived in  the  best  hearts  and  lives  in  a  way  and  degree  which 
it  does  not  now  enter  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive.  Then 
belief  in  the  divine  will  not  depend  upon  demonstrations, 
either  of  the  old  style  familiar  in  natural  theology  or  the  new 
type  which  finds  evidences  of  God  in  the  nature  of  knowledge, 
but  we  shall  realize  the  pregnant  saying  that,  whereas  men 
have  vainly  thought,  from  Anselm  down,  to  confer  honor 
upon  Deity  by  carefully  working  out  new  proofs  of  His  exist- 
ence, forgetting  that  all  that  can  be  proved  can  also  be  dis- 
proved, it  is  wiser  to  leave  the  divine  existence  to  that  deeper, 
more  intuitive  region  of  the  soul  where  belief  closes  in  with 
its  own  with  an  instant  affinity  and  certainty  that  leaves  all 
intellectual  proof  far  behind.  Let  us,  then,  restore  and  wel- 
come the  degraded  word  superstition  as  being  of  things  above, 
and  not  below,  the  realm  of  mind.  Nothing  lies  so  close  and 
so  warm  about  the  heart,  and,  although  nothing  so  needs  edu- 
cation, it  is  the  faculty  by  which  man  is  most  above  the 
animals. 

Again,  the  feeling  instincts  with  their  organs,  faith,  and 
imagination,  are  larger  and  more  generic  than  the  intellect  in 
a  very  different  sense  from  that  urged  by  Kidd.  The  faculties 
of  this  stratum  of  our  nature  are  complete,  while  those  which 
make  up  the  intellect  are  fragmentary.  They  represent  the 
race,  while  the  intellect  expresses  the  individual.  But  little  of 
the  former  can  come  to  consciousness  in  a  single  life,  but  by 
the  belief  function  man  is  rescued  from  all  his  limitations  of 
time  and  space.  He  lives  everywhere  and  at  all  times.  These 
are  the  totalizing  powers  which  supplement  the  vaunted  ex- 
perience of  epistemologists.  It  is  by  and  through  them  that 
the  soul  becomes  prophetic,  penetrating  the  future,  anticipat- 
ing in  far-off  and  ruder  times  the  glories  of  Christ  and  of  the 
golden  all-hail  hereafter.  These  proleptic  powers  in  us  are 
the  whole  human  species  divinely  stirring  in  the  individual, 
tinging  his  dingy  life  with  the  halo  of  uncreated  light,  reen- 
forcing  the  personal  resolve  of  to-day  with  son-'e  of  the  mo- 
mentum of  the  whole  evolutionary  process.  Thus,  when  we 
perceive  and  reason  it  is  our  own  isolated  individual  self; 
when  we  launch  upon  the  great  sea  of  feeling  we  represent 
humanity  itself. 


i82  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEMS 

Now  the  higher  truths  of  rehgion  are  revelations  to  the 
single  self  from  cosmic  man  in  us.  They  seem  objective  be- 
cause they  are  not  born  in  our  own  lives;  they  are  not  the 
object  seen,  but  the  power  of  vision  itself.  The  absorption  in 
a  great  work  of  art,  the  fervor  that  sometimes  makes  men 
fanatics  and  zealots,  the  lofty  emprise  of  soul  which  believes 
because  it  is  absurd,  the  insistence  upon  the  preeminence  of 
the  great  plastic  creations  of  literature  as  classical  or  as  even 
infallibly  revealed,  is  because  they  speak  the  language  of  this 
larger  man  within  us,  and  not  that  of  empirical  individual  ex- 
perience. For  the  former  creations  we  love  to  throw  the  whole 
stress  of  conviction  into  such  words  as  revealed,  inspired,  di- 
vine, and  just  in  proportion  to  the  completeness  with  which 
we  realize  their  grand  formulae.  The  boundaries  of  personal 
existence  expand  until  they  become  coterminous  with  those  of 
le  grand  etre,  leviathan,  or  by  whatever  term  we  call  the  genus 
man. 

This  hard  saying  once  fully  realized,  we  are  able  to  ap- 
proach the  questions,  first,  how  to  grade  values  from  the  low- 
est superstition  up  to  the  highest,  and,  second,  what  is  the 
true  pedagogy  of  the  supernatural?  The  root  of  all  super- 
stition is  a  sense  of  something  deeper  and  more  real  in  things 
than  sense  phenomena  teach.  It  is  an  outcrop  of  the  scnsus 
numinis;  an  age  and  a  race  in  which  it  is  excessive  has  great 
but  utterly  undeveloped  capacities  for  faith.  The  very  fecun- 
dity of  fancy  seen  in  animism,  the  gendering  of  all  nouns  in 
the  personification  of  natural  objects,  the  persistent  mythic 
construction  of  the  world,  is  the  promise  and  potency  of  the 
highest  literature,  art,  and  religion.  If  these  elements  are  de- 
veloped coherently  and  shoot  together  into  connected  epics  or 
theoganies — if  the  gods  are  organized  into  ranks  and  their 
lives  or  adventures  elaborated,  or  any  cult  of  spiritual  beings 
is  articulated,  then  the  race  is  climbing  the  slow,  hard  way 
up  to  a  culture  period.  If  it  remains  incoherent  and  discon- 
necte'd,  or  lapses  to  abject  fears  of  incorporeal  agencies,  the 
ethnic  stock  in  which  this  occurs  aborts  and  becomes  decadent, 
or  at  least  reverts  to  a  fallow  state,  to  start  again  later.  The 
highest  races  work  over  this  culture  stuff  into  forms  of  sublim- 
ity, beauty,  and  order;  Olympus  and  all  the  demigods  of 
Homer  and  the  dramatists  ensue.    Highest  of  all  must  forever 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        183 

be  placed  those  races  that  not  only  organized  the  transcendent 
world,  but  brought  its  whole  efficiency  to  bear  for  moral  ad- 
vancement. Not  the  kalo  kagatheia,  but  the  Semitic  powers 
that  make  for  righteousness  become  supreme,  and  faith  merges 
with  the  underived  and  sublime  ought  of  Kant's  categorical 
imperative.  This  is  the  anabasis,  the  way  up  of  the  feeling 
instincts,  which  the  catabasis,  or  the  way  down,  reverses.  We 
can  now  see  the  profound  meaning  of  the  etymology,  the 
philologically  criticised  but  sometimes  psychologically  prob- 
able origin  of  the  word  religion  as  binding  back.  As  each 
soul  unfolds  it  thrills  anew  as  it  comes  in  contact  with  the 
ancient  verities  of  the  heart  like  "  vague  snatches  of  Uranian 
antiphone,"  from  which  perhaps  there  is  a  sense  of  previous 
alienation,  but  now  of  complete  at-one-ment,  for  it  has  found 
its  own. 

I  cannot  agree  with  some  of  my  friends  of  the  ultra-Uni- 
tarian and  free  religious  camp  that  the  supernatural  has  no 
place  in  the  religious  education  of  the  young,  but  hold,  on  the 
contrary,  that  it  has  a  place  almost  central  and  supreme.  I 
insist  that  we  misconceive  and  misteach  it.  Here,  as  else- 
where, education  must  begin  with  rudiments,  and  repeat  the 
history  of  the  race.  Every  child  is  through  and  through  a 
fetish  worshiper  at  a  certain  stage.  Examine  the  contents  of 
a  boy's  pocket,  find  the  meaning  of  the  smooth  and  pretty 
stones  and  trinkets  that  he  takes  wherever  he  goes,  puts  in 
cotton  or  near  the  fire  of  a  cold  night,  lets  down  into  wells 
and  ponds  to  enlarge  their  experience,  feels  a  sympathetic 
pang  for  if  they  are  broken.  Ponder  the  meager  but  precious 
literature  now  evolving  of  even  adults  who  are  inseparable 
from  some  mascot  or  shun  some  hoodoo,  and  it  will  be  ap- 
parent that  these  are  the  same  processes,  psychic  and  physical, 
which  bind  the  Bushman  to  his  charmed  amulet.  The  faith 
instincts  of  the  soul  are  accommodated  to  such  things  in  their 
nascent  period,  and  they  educate  these  faculties  at  that  stage 
better  than  any  other,  so  that  he  who  knows  nothing  of  the 
fetish  stage  is  liable  to  be  less  able  to  grasp  the  transcendent 
truths  of  faith  later.  Again,  the  child's  sentiment  toward 
flowers,  stars,  favorite  trees,  the  sun  and  moon,  repeats,  though 
evanescently,  the  history  of  the  race  in  the  religious  evolution 
of  which  temples  and  elaborate  ritual  have  grown  up  about 


i84  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

these  centers.  All  were  at  one  time  the  highest  expressions  of 
the  religious  sentiments  in  the  world,  so  in  the  child's  feeling 
toward  animals  we  see  abundant  rudiments  of  totemism.  His 
hero  worship  is  the  same. 

Here,  again,  I  would  borrow  from  pagan  and  Catholic 
sources  many  discarded  and,  alas !  now  disconnected  elements 
for  my  religious  curriculum.  Care  should,  of  course,  be  con- 
stantly taken  lest  the  mind  dwell  too  long  in  the  lower  stages, 
but  also  to  bring  out  the  high  educational  value  of  the  experi- 
ence of  transcending  a  lower  for  a  higher  form.  Perhaps 
individual  prescriptions  of  ghost  stories,  angels,  fairies,  apothe- 
osized heroes  will  have  their  place  w'hen  we  have  evolved  a 
complete  scheme  that  fits  the  soul.  All  the  elements  of  the 
supernal  which  rest  upon  the  intellect  are  cold,  dried  herbarium 
specimens,  while  these  things  live  only  when  and  where  they 
are  most  deeply  and  profoundly  felt. 

H  science  is  now  a  trifle  inhospitable  to  these  educational 
uses  and  values  of  the  transcendent — if  we  have  low  concep- 
tions of  myth  instead  of  conceiving  it  as  the  high  art  formula- 
tion of  the  unknown  or  the  uncertain,  as  Plato  did,  it  is  be- 
cause the  psychology  of  the  feelings  is  still  undeveloped.  They 
and  all  these  creations  witness  to  the  fact  that  man  is  not  yet 
complete;  that  the  best  things  and  the  greatest  things  can 
never  happen  to  the  individual;  that  his  soul  is  not  unre- 
sponsive, but,  rather,  is  a  part  of  all  that  has  been  which  re- 
verberates in  him.  Have  there  been  new  things  brought  con- 
sciously into  the  modern  world  ?  If  so,  we  must  reflect  that  all 
that  is  thus  entelechized  in  history  was  once  only  this  germ 
of  faith  which  can  make  and  remove  mountains.  Its  "  not 
yet  "  is  a  rudimentary  organ  in  the  soul.  This,  whether  a  bud 
of  the  future  or  a  relic  of  the  past  in  the  soul,  whether  a  germ 
or  a  vestige,  will  have  a  great  place  in  the  evolutionary  psy- 
chology of  the  future.  It  has  inspired  every  prophetic  leader 
who  has  walked  by  faith  and  not  by  sight,  and  to  the  proper 
guidance  and  unfoldment  of  this  great  group  of  most  mis- 
conceived, now  forced,  now  neglected,  faculties,  the  religious 
teacher  must  bend  his  consummate  art  and  study. 

IX.  The  complete  and  ideal  Sunday-school  should  make 
provision  for  maturer  and  cultivated  young  men  and  women 
according  to  principles  not  yet  recognized.    The  Pauline  writ- 


THE   RELIGIOUS    TRAINING    OF    CHILDREN        185 

ings  are  to  some  extent  suited  to  this,  but  certainly  not  to 
earlier  periods.  This  is  true  also,  but  to  less  extent,  for  the 
prophecies,  which,  however,  pedagogically  precede.  Here,  too, 
there  should  be  some  study  of  patristics,  and  the  burden  of 
church  history  belongs  here.  It  would  be  ideal  also  to  have 
a  little  comparative  study  here  of  the  great  ethnic  religions 
with  a  taste  of  the  philosophy  of  religion,  and  almost  any 
condensed  germinal  matter  in  ethics  and  psychology  would 
not  be  out  of  place,  A  dominant  aim  should  be  to  expose  to 
the  mind  the  results  of  the  highest  culture  in  all  these  faiths, 
but  in  a  way  to  warm  and  not  to  chill  the  heart ;  to  break  down 
the  inveterate  feeling  that  there  can  be  opposition  between 
science  or  philosophy  and  religion.  I  have  known  a  successful 
study  of  the  higher  evolution  represented  by  Drummond's 
"  Ascent  of  Man,"  and  of  what  is  now  often  called  the  higher 
pantheism.  In  this  new  and  higher  story  for  which  I  plead 
there  should  be  neither  field  nor  faith  for  any  conventional 
orthodoxies  of  creed.  The  type  of  mind  once  associated  with 
the  very  name  deacon,  so  far  as  this  implied  a  perfervid  de- 
fender of  things  as  they  are  and  involved  an  atmosphere  of 
repression  for  any  sincere  doubt  or  outre  opinion,  should  be 
carefully  excluded.  The  atmosphere  here  should  invite  growth 
and  expansion  in  all  directions,  and  the  period  of  circumnuta- 
tion,  before  the  young  mind  selects  and  clasps  its  support, 
should  be  prolonged.  This  should  be  essentially  the  stage  of 
inquiry,  where  ingenuous  youth  brings  its  inmost  burning 
questions  and  ideals.  I  plead  for  a  distinct  esoteric  character 
here  for  thought  directed  especially  to  the  future,  recognizing 
that  the  ideals  of  the  young  are  the  best  material  for  prophecy. 
Criticism,  higher  and  lower,  and  all  the  general  standpoints 
and  even  pagan  ideals,  which  are  so  formative  but  so  often 
repressed  and  neglected,  belong  here.  This  is  the  place  for  all 
the  problems  which  Desjardins  and  his  followers  have  raised 
in  France  and  Germany. 

In  the  past  religion  has  been  evoked  to  rescue  its  own 
heart  from  legalists,  scribes,  and  Pharisees,  to  escape  the 
thraldom  of  sophists  and  scholastics.  Once  Europe  resounded 
with  the  call  to  save  the  holy  sepulcher  from  pagans,  and 
again  to  rescue  the  Bible  and  conscience  from  the  church  to 
individual  control.    Now  a  new  rally,  comparable  with  any  of 


i86  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

thiese,  is  needed  to  rescue  childhood  and  youth  from  perverse 
methods  of  teaching  the  highest  of  all  subjects.  While  I  am 
far  from  the  egotism  of  comparing  the  principles  above  enun- 
ciated to  the  epoch-making  thesis  which  Luther  nailed  to  the 
church  door,  I  insist  that  childhood  is  now  no  whit  less  in 
need  of  a  reformation  in  its  religious  regimen  than  was  the 
adult  mind  then.  Yet  the  magnitude  of  the  work  grows  to  a 
significance  not  less  than  then  just  in  proportion  as  we  come 
to  understand  the  true  nature  of  childhood.  Nothing  is  really 
true  unless  it  rest  on  deep  foundations  in  human  nature  and 
needs,  and  all  that  does  not  square  with  that  nature  is  false. 
Childhood  and  youth  in  their  best  impulses  of  development 
are  not  perverse,  but  point  more  infallibly  than  anything  else 
to  the  constant  pole  of  human  destiny.  Das  Ewig-Kindliche 
is  now  taking  its  place  beside,  if  not  in  some  respects  above, 
das  Ewig-W eibliche  as  man's  pillar  of  cloud  by  day  and  fire 
by  night  to  lead  him  on.  The  modern  student  of  psycho- 
genesis  sees  almost  a  new  continent  of  meaning  in  setting  the 
child  in  the  midst,  and  becoming  as  a  child  to  enter  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  which  is  "  of  such."  He  holds  a  new  brief  for 
this  hitherto  submerged  third  of  the  human  race.  The  mis- 
conceptions and  distortions  of  children,  body  and  soul,  have 
been  the  reproach  of  not  only  rude  but  cultured  ages.  Here 
we  must  begin  with  a  frank  confession  of  past  ignorance  and 
sin,  and  bring  forth  fruits  rneet  therefor.  We  are  still  ex- 
posed to  the  full  force  of  the  penalty  which  threatens  those 
who  offend  these  little  ones.  Let  us  pray  that  the  good  God 
may  wink  at  times  of  past  ignorance,  but  not  forget  that,  now 
that  recent  studies  of  the  human  soul  are  revealing  the  Bible 
as  the  world's  great  text-book  in  psychology,  we  have  no  cloak 
for  our  sin.  It  is  not  a  question  of  petty  tinkering  devices, 
but  of  a  deep  and  radical  change  of  plan,  goal,  and  method 
now  well  developed  and  taught  in  institutions  accessible  to 
those  earnest  enough  to  undertake  serious  study.  Plain 
though  many  principles  are,  others  have  yet  to  be  determined, 
and  there  is  also,  let  me  repeat,  a  vast  work  of  details  before 
the  completion  of  what  is  already  begun. 

In  his  "  Vedanta  "  Max  Miiller  praises  this  system  of  Indie 
philosophy  as  standing  distinctly  above  the  Vedas  or  Hindu 
Bible,   as  something  into  which  the  elite  speculative  minds 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        187 

penetrate,  as  a  kind  of  meta-theological  region  wherein  much 
might  seem  to  those  who  ghmpse  it  from  beneath  contradictory 
to  the  Vedic  teaching,  but  he  praises  the  harmony  thus  estab- 
Hshed  between  rehgion  and  philosophy  as  merely  different 
stages  of  development  of  one  and  the  same  content,  the  incon- 
sistencies between  which  are  those  inherent  in  the  nature  of 
growth  itself.  So  I  plead  for  a  realm  for  these  higher  ques- 
tions as  the  best  safeguard  against  arrest  and  retrogression. 
It  is  a  singular  infirmity  of  religions  that,  much  as  they  stim- 
ulate growth  lower,  they  are  prone  to  arrest  it  at  a  certain 
higher  stage;  so  that  the  last  moult  of  the  soul  as  it  seeks  to 
cast  off  the  cyst  of  dogma  is  prevented.  Of  all  the  many  forms 
of  the  pervasive  and  insistent  sense  of  finality  of  a  finishing 
and  finished  education,  this  is  the  most  dwarfing.  The  upper 
grades  of  our  Sunday-school  work  too  often  confirm  juvenile 
conceptions  and  sentiments,  and  prevent  the  development  of 
mature  manhood  and  womanhood  in  religion.  This  was  the 
lack  which  the  neo-Christian  movement  sought  to  meet,  per- 
haps characteristically,  by  dispensing  with  all  creeds.  Neither 
the  pulpit  nor  the  college  Y.  M.  C.  A.  quite  meets  the  needs 
of  the  best  academic  minds,  and  Protestant  Christendom  to- 
day, in  my  judgment,  needs  nothing  more  than  a  kind  of 
mission  especially  constituted  for  and  addressed  to  them.  Dur- 
ing an  experience  of  more  than  a  score  of  years  as  a  professor 
of  philosophical  subjects,  where  the  deeper  matters  of  belief 
are  constantly  touched,  I  have  been  profoundly  impressed 
with  the  need  of  modern  ductorcs  dubitantium,  or  soul  mid- 
wives,  of  a  higher  order  than  yet  exists.  Many  seem  to  need 
not  only  a  second  but  a  series  of  regenerations  like  another 
sun  risen  on  midnoon.  It  sometimes  almost  seems  from  this 
standpoint  as  if  Christianity  itself,  at  least  as  now  best  formu- 
lated, does  not  quite  suffice  far  as  it  overtops  all  other  relig- 
ions, but  as  though  we  must  look  forward  to  a  kind  of  third 
dispensation  of  a  new  eternal  gospel  such  as  has  hovered 
l^efore  the  minds  of  not  a  few  lofty  souls  since  Christendom 
began.  We  must  not  set  an  arbitrary  goal  at  any  rate  to  the 
possibilities  of  human  development.  We  must  not  forget  that 
if  the  race  is  slowly  advancing  and  each  generation  adding  a 
little,  this  advancement  can  take  place,  not  in  the  stages  of 
complete  maturity,  still  less  after  it,  but  only  by  prolonging 


i88  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

the  later  stages  of  adolescent  evolution.    Here  only  the  future 
man  that  is  to  be  slowly  burgeons.^ 

It  is  in  this  connection  that  our  theological  schools  are 
most  of  all  unsatisfactory.  They  close  questions  rather  than 
open  them  to  the  methods  of  progress,  which  is  always  prone 
to  be  dialectic.  It  is  notorious  that  institutions  established  to 
turn  out  those  who  are  to  save  souls  and  teach  so  much  that 
is  good  precisely  fail  to  teach  psychology  or  the  doctrine  of 
the  soul,  and  that,  too,  in  an  age  when  it  is  a  center  of  interest 
and  study  as  never  before,  and  in  an  age  which  the  future 
historian  of  culture  will  designate  as  the  psychological  age  of 
the  world.  No  other  field  is  so  competent  to  regenerate  these 
institutions,  and  create  new  centers  of  interest  that  will  mobil- 
ize all  old  knowledge  and  repolarize  the  soul  in  conformity  to 
the  mind  and  will  of  Jesus,  whose  psychology  is  one  of  the 
great  impending  themes.  Religion  represents  the  most  vital 
part  of  the  soul,  but  by  an  iron  law  and  because  moments, 
men,  and  ages  of  the  greatest  vitality  are  rarest,  nothing  so 
tends  to  lapse  to  formalism,  routine,  and  dogma.  This  stage 
of  life  is  the  highest  and  best  as  science  now  conceives  it. 
Complete  maturity  already  means  decline  from  the  highest 
human  level.     Hence,  to  guide  the  souls  of  youth  is  the  very 

*  Adolf  Harnack,  at  the  Forty-ninth  Annual  Meeting  of  the  German  Philologists 
and  Gymnasial  Teachers  in  Basel,  September,  1907,  created  what  is  described 
ia  the  German  pedagogical  journals  as  real  consternation,  by  proposing  radical 
transformation  of  religious  training  in  secondary  education.  For  the  higher 
gymnasial  classes  he  would  completely  abolish  the  critical  authoritative  methods 
now  in  use  and  in  their  place  establish  courses  based  upon  modem  critical  and 
historical  methods.  Only  thus  can  this  subject  remain.  Since,  however,  there 
are  stages  in  the  development  of  the  pupils  in  which  exclusively  authoritative 
religious  instruction  has  no  place,  and  at  the  same  time  the  modem  critical  methods 
would  be  premature,  Harnack  proposes  for  two  years,  in  the  middle  of  the  course, 
to  entirely  omit  this  subject.  For  the  four  upper  classes  he  would  have  a  course 
in  which  the  fourth  or  unter  secunda  should  study  the  history  of  the  religion  of  Israel 
and  the  Old  Testament,  the  third  the  story  of  Jesus  and  primitive  Christianity, 
the  second  should  be  introduced  into  Catholicism  and  early  Protestantism,  and  the 
first  class — ober  prima — should  study  the  essence  of  religion  and  Christianity  with 
special  reference  to  the  vital  problems  of  the  present.  In  conformity  with  this,  he 
would  have  also  courses  established  at  the  university  to  prepare  teachers  for  this 
work.  The  speaker  insisted  that  students  knew  extremely  little  of  the  nature  of 
other  confessions,  and  that  this  was  a  great  defect  of  culture  that  must  be  remedied. 
The  conceptions  which  Protestant  youth  hold  of  Catholicism  are  almost  inconceiv- 
ably crude.  The  knowledge  of  church  history  must  be  relied  upon  to  remedy  this 
evil. 


THE   RELIGIOUS    TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        189 

highest  test  of  all  preaching  and  teaching.  Youth  want  in- 
spiration rather  than  formulae;  vistas  and  hints  rather  than 
reasons.  They  are  lifted  by  suggestion  and  imitation,  and 
always  gravitate  from  theology  to  philosophy  and  from  phil- 
osophical to  psychological  problems  and  aspect  of  things.^ 

*  In  England  education  has  been  mainly  voluntary,  and  government  and  law 
makers  have  had  till  lately  little  to  do  with  it.  The  pious  founders  and  philanthropists 
who  have  given  the  time,  work,  money,  and  interest  by  which  most  has  been  done, 
are  a  unique  feature  of  this  land  without  a  parallel  in  others.  Thus,  Raikes  founded 
the  Sunday-school  in  1781  mainly  to  teach  secular  branches,  and  admitted  all  who 
would  wash.  A  few  paid  trifling  fees,  and  here  on  Sunday  all  the  children  of  the 
poor,  save  those  who  could  find  entrance  to  the  endowed  charity  schools,  were 
taught  the  three  r's  and  little  else.  They  were  essentially  secular  schools  held  on 
Sunday.  Since  the  government  took  up  the  serious  work  of  public  education,  how- 
ever, about  fifty  years  ago,  Sunday-school  teaching  has  become  mainly  religious, 
so  that  there  is  a  sense  which  Fitch  (Educational  Aims  and  Methods,  by  Sir  Joshua 
Fitch.  Lecture  13,  Macmillan,  1900)  well  recognizes  in  which  the  English  Sunday- 
school  has  now  become  more  or  less  superfluous,  especially  since  the  law  of  1870 
and  its  successors,  which  provides  day  schools  for  all  who  need  elementary  instruc- 
tion, and  requires  even  in  the  municipal  schools  Bible  reading  and  religious  in- 
struction. 

The  English  Sunday-school,  therefore,  has  a  new  problem,  and  to  solve  it  we 
must  go  back  to  the  ideal  of  Sunday  itself.  It  should  certainly  release  from  the 
week's  routine  and  be  sacred  to  family  life  in  the  home,  for  which  the  best  Sunday- 
school  ought  to  be  a  very  poor  substitute.  If  it  encourages  parents  to  evade  their 
own  responsibility,  as  Fitch  well  urges,  it  does  harm,  and  just  in  proportion  as 
parents  do  their  duty,  "we  may  be  well  content  in  the  coming  century  to  see  the 
needs  for  Sunday-schools  steadily  diminish."  Its  advocates  often  mistake  means 
for  ends  and  vaunt  great  numlxirs  and  assume  the  Sunday-school  is  a  good  thing 
itself,  and  thus  no  doubt  sometimes  encourage  "the  negligent  and  ignorant  parents 
who  are  simply  glad  to  be  rid  of  an  encumbrance  on  Sunday."  We  cannot  break 
too  soon  with  the  Puritan  and  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  which  gives  a  sense  of  unreality 
to  religion  and  even  life.  If  not,  as  George  Herbert  calls  the  Sabbath,  "  the  fruit 
of  this,  the  next  world's  bud,"  it  ought  to  bring  in  the  influence  of  the  overthought 
and  encourage  larger  and  serious  views  and  favor  culture  and  poise. 

The  fact  that  the  Sunday-school  teacher  is  not  paid  and  is  not  a  professional 
pedagogue  but  a  friend,  a  companion  devoted  to  conversation,  ought  to  increase 
his  influence.  The  Sunday-school  must  not  be  solely  religious  nor,  save  in  a  very 
slight  degree,  theological.  A  part  of  the  time  might  well  be  devoted  to  reading 
poems  or  stories  with  a  moral  meaning,  and  the  teacher  should  be  a  sympathetic 
and  effective  reader.  The  children  might  describe  books  they  have  read;  invent 
stories  to  fit  pictures;  have  abundant  suggestions  from  a  good  Sunday-S(  h(X)l  library 
as  a  moral  safeguard.  More  than  the  day  teacher,  the  Sunday  teacher  should  be 
in  loco  parentis;  should  not  enter  upon  his  work  in  an  amateurish  spirit;  should 
realize  that  his  vocation  is  an  art;  interest  himself  in  the  best  pedagogical  literature 
and  lives;  never  preach,  but  evoke  interest  and  thought;  shun  all  catechetical 
methods,  most  of  all  those  that  require  simply  yes  or  no  for  an  answer,  and  next 
those  that  insist  u{K)n  a  form  of  words  which  always  tend  to  become  a  substitute 


I90  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

While  I  hold  the  Bible  to  be  the  supreme  book,  I  have  no 
language  emphatic  enough  to  denounce  the  pedagogic  infamy 
caused  by  the  too  common  view  of  its  uniform  literal  inspira- 
tion and  inerrancy.  The  effects  of  teaching  the  historicity  of 
such  miracles  as  Jonah  and  the  whale,  the  arrest  of  the  sun, 
walking  on  the  water,  etc.,  is  to  make  the  fresh,  eager,  honest 

for  thought;  and  yet  should  train  the  memory  and  fill  it  with  choice  poetic  and 
proverbial  expressions  from  the  Bible,  which  exalt  the  mind,  touch  the  heart, 
preform  moral  decisions.  I  quite  agree  with  Fitch  that  stereotyped  questions  and 
stereotyped  answers  leave  no  room  for  the  play  of  intelligence  or  suggestion;  they 
stand  between  and  keep  apart  pupil  and  teacher,  giving  the  crudest  instructors 
an  excuse  for  not  making  questions  of  their  own;  are  faulty  because  they  require 
the  children  to  learn  the  answer  without  learning  the  question;  and  illustrate  the 
one  great  pedagogic  disease  of  iron  law  by  which  methods  always  tend  to  lapse  to 
verbalism  and  routine.  Moreover,  they  are  too  abstract,  and  although  the  Church 
of  England  specifically  enjoins  open  instruction  and  examination  in  the  catechism 
on  Sunday  afternoons,  the  practice  has  lapsed,  because  modern  tendencies  have 
everywhere  left  this  defunct  device  far  behind.  Although  catechisms  may  have 
their  place,  they  are  not  for  children.  The  very  fact,  too,  that  results  are  not  tested 
by  examinations,  but  done  obscurely,  makes  personal  influence  more  important. 

Fitch  urges  teachers  very  strongly  to  inculcate  only  that  which  they  believe 
themselves  with  all  their  hearts  and  to  shun  all  concerning  which  they  have  private 
misgivings.  He  has  no  patience  with  the  principles  which  assume  that  children 
should  be  asked  to  believe  more  than  adults  do,  or  "that  it  is  good  for  them  first  to 
accept  the  traditional  orthodoxy  even  though  in  after-life,  when  the  critical  faculty 
is  fully  awakened,  their  views  will  be  corrected."  Absolute  candor,  sincerity, 
teaching  out  of  a  full  heart  is  necessary  to  prevent  a  sense  of  unreality  and  in- 
sincerity in  the  young.  He  doubts  whether  the  convictions  shared  by  the  great 
body  of  religious  adults  are  those  taught  to  children  as  in  the  case  of  secular  learn- 
ing. With  this  view  Phillips  Brooks  agreed  and  thought  it  calamitous  to  condemn 
each  generation  to  fight  over  again  the  battle  of  that  which  preceded  with  the  dis- 
advantage of  making  this  fight  less  strenuous,  because  belief  was  less  intense  to 
start  with.  "Never  tell  a  child  that  he  must  believe  what  you  do  not  believe." 
Make  the  Sunday-school,  then,  a  device  for  bringing  personal  influence  to  bear; 
tell  the  things  you  have  found  most  fruitful  in  your  life;  and  maintain  a  wide  mar- 
gin of  individual  freedom  from  all  rules  and  lessons. 

This  latter  principle,  although  sound  so  far  as  it  insists  upon  the  chief  gravamen 
being'laid  upon  what  the  instructor  most  profoundly  believes,  needs  one  important 
modification;  namely,  very  much  especially  of  the  narrative  or  historical  part  needs 
to  be  impressed  upon  the  young  as  literally  historical  and  objective,  which  maturer 
minds  have  come  to  regard  as  essentially  literary.  It  is  absurd  to  assume  that  one 
cannot  and  should  not  teach  the  tales  of  Homer  or  even  Santa  Claus,  and  do  it  with 
unction  and  success,  while  the  child  thinks  it  all  to  be  simply  history,  while  to  the 
adult  it  has  a  larger,  higher  meaning. 

Laurie  (Method  and  the  Sunday-School  Teacher,  in  his  Teachers'  Guild  Ad- 
dresses. London,  1892,  p.  69)  says  that  "the  qualification  and  preparation  of  a 
■  Sunday-school  teacher  can  differ  only  in  certain  details  from  the  preparation  and 
qualification  of  teachers  generally,"  viz.,  they  must  know  well  their  subject  matter 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        i^l 

minds  of  children  distrustful  of  the  parents'  sincerity  and 
recalcitrant  to  their  intellectual  authority,  suspicious  of  the 
church  if  not  of  religion  itself,  to  pollute  the  sweet  reasonable- 
ness that  children  bring  to  this  subject,  to  burden  and  pervert 
the  mind  with  casuistry  and  attempts  at  accommodation,  to 
make  instruction   in  these  subjects  not  education  but  indoc- 

and  have  an  earnest  desire  to  teach  it  and  be  interested  in  the  minds  of  their  pupils 
first,  subjects  second,  and  themselves  not  at  all.  There  must  be  method  for  all 
who  would  pilot  to  the  islands  of  the  blessed,  or  both  teacher  and  taught  will  be 
lost  on  a  pathless  ocean.  The  subtleties  and  delicacies  of  spiritual  hfe  make  this 
the  hardest  kind  of  teaching.  All  clergymen  should  study  principles  and  methods 
of  education  as  part  of  their  pastoral  theology.  "  Soul  is  kindled  only  by  soul."  But 
nowhere  are  there  such  difficulties.  First,  the  Sunday-school  is  voluntary;  perhaps 
it  should  not  be  called  a  school,  but  should  be  as  unlike  it  as  possible  and  everything 
should  be  pleasant  and  attractive.  Laurie  would  have  no  preparation  of  lessons, 
no  tasks,  no  pressure,  no  competition,  prizes,  or  gifts.  It  is  a  substitute  for  parental 
teaching  and  would  not  be  necessary  if  parents  taught  the  Lord's  words  diligently, 
when  they  sit,  walk,  arise,  and  lie  down.  Perhaps  it  should  be  a  children's  service 
with  moral  instruction.  The  teacher  should  instill;  there  should  be  brief  talks  on 
the  life  of  Christ;  the  teacher  and  pupil  should  read  the  Bible  together  much  and 
talk  on  fine  passages.  Dogma  is  not  only  useless  but  hurtful  for  the  young,  and 
theology  easily  gets  in  the  way  of  religion.  The  child  should  recognize  a  causal 
spirit  back  of  all  things;  should  aspire  for  unity  and  sonship;  and  should  be  taught 
reverence  and  love,  because  these  two  underlie  everything.  "Do  not  ask  children 
of  even  fourteen  years  of  age  to  learn  a  catechism  by  heart;  go  over  it,  if  you  think 
it  necessary,  or  the  best  part  of  it,  and  see  if  they  understand  it;  get  the  substance 
of  it  from  them  in  their  own  words.  The  learning  by  heart  of  the  very  words  is  a 
curious  superstition  and  most  certainly  despiritualizes."  The  school  must  attempt 
only  broad,  useful  truths;  follow  Christ's  way  and  not  that  of  the  theologian;  do 
not  attempt  to  teach  that  duty  is  easy;  avoid  premature  training  in  formulas  which 
are  very  different  from  broad  and  useful  truths  of  religion.  "  Preoccupation  of  the 
young  mind  with  dogma  has  failed  to  make  Christendom  Christian;  let  us  try 
another  and  better  way." 

In  England  education  was  long  voluntary  and  largely  under  ecclesiastical 
control  till  the  Act  of  1870  authorized  localities  to  establish  public  schools  which 
should  share  the  government  grants.  Thus  arose  a  dual  system.  If  in  the  new 
schools  any  kind  of  religious  instruction  is  given,  it  must  not  be  distinctive  of  any 
denomination  and  these  teachers  were  exempt  from  every  religious  test.  Ix>cal 
rate-aid  was  given  only  to  schools  wholly  under  public  control.  By  the  Balfour 
Act  of  1902,  aid  from  the  government  was  disjx-nsed  to  both  classes  of  schools  but 
by  municipal  councils.  This  was  a  temporary  provision  and  satisfied  neither  the 
church  nor  the  secularists,  so  that  the  Birrell  Act  of  1906,  which  went  into  ojKTa- 
tion,  January,  1908,  or  something  like  it,  was  inevitable.  Under  it  no  sectarian 
teaching  can  Ije  given  in  any  state  or  rate-aid  school.  The  Cow|K'r-Temple 
religious  teaching,  whit  h  is  essentially  biblical  only,  is  all  that  can  Ix-  taught  in  the 
school.  Thus,  ever)'  British  child  can  now  learn  something  of  the  Bible.  Still,  the 
IcKal  authorities  were  authorized,  if  the  demand  was  overwhelming  to  dis|)ense 
with  even  this,  and  parents  may  withhold  their  children  from  it.    This,  however. 


192  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

trination,  and  to  implant  alien  constellations  of  ideas  which 
act  like  foreign  substances  in  the  system.  Our  methods  im- 
plant a  morbid  self-consciousness  of  the  supernatural  not  felt 
about  this  element  in  Homer  or  the  Niebelungenlied  or  po- 
etry, because  what  should  be  taught  as  literature  is  inculcated 
as  dogma.     The  Freud  school  have  shown  us  the  pathetic  and 

is  exceptional.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  parents  of  a  given  number  of  children 
wish  it,  denominational  teaching  may  be  provided  not  more  than  two  mornings  a 
week  for  those  desiring  it,  but  not  at  public  expense.  Thus,  in  the  transferred 
schools  additional  facilities  for  theological  and  sectarian  training  may  be  furnished 
and  in  rural  districts  the  secular  teacher  may  volunteer.  While  this  scheme  may 
be  a  step  toward  disestablishment  or  disendowment,  it  involves  nothing  that  can  be 
fairly  called  confiscation,  as  some  extremists  of  the  aggrieved  minority  claim.  It 
only  applies  the  broad  principle  that  state  subventions  or  local  taxation  cannot 
go  to  denominational  teaching.  Very  partial  analogies  to  such  state  assumption 
were  seen  after  the  war  of  1870  when  the  German  provincial  universities,  if  they 
accepted  imperial  aid,  must  submit  in  some  measure  to  imperial  inspection  and 
control;  also  in  this  country  in  the  opportunity  of  colleges  if  they  drop  their  sectarian 
characteristics  to  profit  by  the  Carnegie  Retiring  pension,  and  again  in  the  feebly 
endowed  New  England  private  academies,  which  have  become  public  schools. 
It  is  too  soon  to  learn  whether  under  this  system  the  Bible  itself  will  become  better 
knovvTi  than  heretofore.  Claims  both  ways  are  made.  One  thing  is  certain,  viz., 
that  the  dominant  sentiment  of  the  British  people  as  expressed  by  Parliament 
favors  teaching  the  Bible  itself  without  theological  implications.  As  compared 
with  the  systems  of  other  lands  this  is  a  unique  and  significant  departure.  The 
Separation  Law  of  1905  e.  g.,  in  France,  which  went  into  effect  December  10, 
1906,  was  far  more  revolutionary,  not  only  because  it  abrogated  a  concordat  which 
had  been  in  operation  for  one  hundred  and  four  years,  but  because  it  more  com- 
pletely secularized  the  new  public  education,  making  no  provision  for  Bible  teach- 
ing but  substituting  ethical  and  civic  for  religious  education. 

The  battle  over  elementary  education  in  England  has  led  to  the  formation  of  a 
parents'  league  the  purpose  of  which  is  to  maintain  the  rights  of  the  parent  to 
determine  the  religious  education  of  his  children  in  the  lower  schools.  It  has 
now  some  80,000  members  and  professes  attachment  to  no  political  party  or  special 
religious  school  of  thought. 

In  this  country  S.  P.  Delany  (Morality  and  the  Public  Schools.  Education, 
1907—8,  vol.  28,  pp.  97-1 12)  proposes  that  American  school  children  be  allowed,  with- 
out detriment  to  their  standing,  to  absent  themselves  half  a  day  each  week  to  attend 
religious  instruction  in  their  own  churches.  This  arrangement  might  be  made  by 
legislation  or  by  local  agreement.  It  should  be  limited  to  children  of  certain  age,  say 
through  the  first  two  years  of  the  high  school,  or  it  might  be  open  to  all.  As  children 
or  their  parents  can  choose  among  various  subjects,  why  not  arrange  for  this?  The 
plan  would  place  the  responsibility  of  moral  and  religious  training  for  children 
where  it  belongs — with  their  parents.  Some  churches  could  afford  trained  and 
even  paid  teachers.  The  pastor  should  take  interest  in  it.  The  scheme  is  by  no 
means  new,  but  has  been  advocated  on  several  occasions  by  clergymen  of  various 
denominations  and  by  others.  The  scheme,  it  was  said,  would  rid  us  of  the  perni- 
cious idea  that  religion  is  for  Sunday  alone.     It  would  give  the  churches  something 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        193 

even  mentally  degenerative  influence  we  often  entail  upon 
childhood  by  the  stork  legend  and  our  other  evasions  and 
hypocrisies  about  sex  and  reproduction  when  childish  curiosity 
begins  to  center  about  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  life,  and 
have  detailed  the  results  of  repression  which  often  become 
neurotic  symptoms,  all  of  which  the  simple  truth  told  in  time 

more  to  do  with  education.  It  is  claimed  that  no  reform  movement  in  education 
has  enlisted  the  sympathy  of  so  many  religious  bodies.  Some  have  thought  this 
would  gradually  do  away  with  parochial  schools.  Pessimists  have  said  that  with- 
out such  a  scheme  this  country  would  be  either  Catholic  or  heathen.  It  certainly 
would  not  divide  children  into  religious  groups,  nor  interrupt  the  regidar  studies  of 
the  school,  nor  docs  it  involve  an  abdication  by  the  state  of  its  function  of  educa- 
tion or  a  confession  of  incompetence.  The  plan  needs  to  be  supplemented  to  make 
provision  for  children  who  have  no  church  connections  and  for  whom  it  cannot  be 
claimed  that  our  national  religion  is  Christianity.  It  would  doubtless  reform  our 
Sunday-school  system. 

The  fourth  general  convention  of  the  Religious  Educational  Association  at  Roch- 
ester in  February,  1907,  shows  wholesome  growth.  Its  purpose  is  "to  inspire 
the  educational  forces  of  our  country  with  the  religious  ideal ;  and  to  keep  before  the 
public  mind  the  ideals  of  religious  education  and  the  sense  of  its  need  and  value." 
The  three  hundred  and  fifty  delegates  from  the  twenty-two  states  representing 
very  divergent  ideals,  indulged  in  no  controversy.  They  agreed  in  the  exaltation 
of  Christ,  not  doctrinally  but  as  a  vital  fact  of  personal  life.  Philanthropy  has 
taken  the  place  of  theology  and  the  heart  is  making  the  theologian.  Perhaps  this 
Association  often  tends  to  be  forensic,  but  it  is  nevertheless  interesting  and  sig- 
nificant, but  has  so  far  little  to  show  in  the  way  of  results. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  has  not  made  itself  slightly  more  in- 
dependent of  its  evangelical  basis  but  remains  so  nearly  on  the  old  foundations. 
When  it  ceases  to  apply  dogmatic  tests  its  efficiency  will  greatly  increase.  L.  E. 
Day  (Religious  Education.  Association  Seminar,  1906,  vol.  15,  pp.  17-31;  62-72) 
conceives  religion  as  man's  God-impelled  effort  to  come  into  complete  harmony 
with  his  environment.  He  thinks  education  has  no  meaning  apart  from  religion. 
The  former  is  conditioned  by  the  continuity  of  society.  C.  W.  Votaw,  a  good 
representative  of  this  curriculum  (Association  Seminar,  March,  1908),  postulates  a 
curriculum  that  shall  rouse  moral  purpose,  inform  and  train  moral  judgment,  teach 
laws  of  physical  and  mental  health,  and  secure  their  observation,  inculcate  self- 
respect  and  the  dignity  and  worth  of  manhood,  establish  right  habits  of  thought 
on  social  and  civic  problems,  cultivate  right  feelings  in  all  relations  of  life,  develop 
and  train  the  will  to  right  motives  and  choices  for  individual  and  social  welfare, 
to  stimulate  and  direct  social  impulses,  promote  brotherliness  in  class  groups,  give 
a  witlcr,  practical,  first-hand  knowledge  of  present-day  needs  and  opixjrtunitics, 
conduct  work,  awaken  the  religious  nature. 

J.  V.  Collins  (Religious  Education  and  the  Sunday-sch<x)l.  Educational  Re- 
view, March,  1909,  vol.  37,  pp.  271-283)  finds  only  one  solution  of  present  condi- 
tions feasible,  viz.,  "a  two-  or  three-hour  session  on  Sunday  instead  of  an  hour  session 
as  now,  with  changes  in  the  administration  of  schools  to  corresix)nd."  This  would 
involve  a  study  period,  smaller  recitation  rooms,  more  teachers  and  grades.  Per- 
haps the  teacher  should  be  released  from  all  church  service.  Sunday  would  be  less 
14 


194  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

would  avoid.  In  religious  pedagogy  the  results  are  analogous 
but  more  diffuse.  In  Italy,  Jordan  and  Labanca  ^  have  shown 
how  the  long  struggle  between  clericalism  and  liberalism  has 
made  even  the  teaching  and  study  of  religious  psychology 
impossible  in  all  the  state  universities,  despite  many  attempts 
to  establish  it,  because  everything  bearing  the  name  of  re- 
ligion suggests  dogma  to  Italian  youth,  who  are  in  a  state  of 
morbid  revolt  against  all  that  smacks  of  ecclesiasticism.  So 
for  children  our  methods  early  alienate  them  from  a  topic  nat- 
urally of  supreme  interest,  because  they  are  thus  compelled  to 
carry  on  a  double  housekeeping  and  swallow  an  undigested 

dreary  for  the  children.  The  plan  could  best  be  begun  in  communities  where  the 
religious  tone  is  good. 

The  Sunday-school  is  isolated  in  time  and  place  and  because  the  Bible  is  thought 
so  unique.  Hence,  its  antiquated  methods.  E.  P.  St.  John  (Criticism  of  Present 
Sunday-school  Fads,  Curriculum,  and  Grades,  with  Demonstration  of  Text -books, 
Ped.  Sem.,  Dec,  1909,  vol.  16,  pp.  519-522)  weighs  historical,  geographic,  photo- 
graphic, dramatic,  ecclesiastical  methods  suggested.  He  would  begin  rehgious 
education  with  nature  worship  or  study,  then  mythology,  then  something  like  magic 
or  man's  control  of  the  gods,  then  the  idea  of  obedience  instead  of  control,  and 
lastly  should  come  an  aspirational  type. 

Dr.  R.  M.  Hodge  (The  Development  of  Social  Consciousness  in  the  Sunday- 
school,  Ped.  Sem.,  Dec,  1909,  vol.  16,  pp.  523-529)  seems  to  think  that  the  in- 
dividualistic standpoint  in  character  building  is  almost  entirely  obsolete  and  that 
our  very  consciousness  must  be  social;  that  in  religion  we  simply  add  and  include 
God  in  our  democracy.  He  does  not  think  that  it  is  democratic  that  the  super- 
intendent should  have  so  much  executive  and  legislative  power.  He  is  now  a  czar 
who  paroles  his  douma.  The  real  Sunday-school  should  be  a  faculty  with  a  con- 
sciousness of  its  own.  The  class  should  vote  on  festivals,  picnics,  raising  and  use 
of  moaey,  should  be  organized,  keep  its  records,  have  free  discussion.  All  should 
begin  with  class  consciousness.  The  individual  code  of  honor  should  be  a  by- 
product of  the  class  code.  The  Sunday-school  building  should  be  modeled  on  the 
best  school  buildings. 

R.  G.  Clapp  (New  Departures  in  Sunday-school  Pedagogy,  Ped.  Sem.,  Dec, 
1909,  vol.  16,  pp.  530-536)  describes  the  Kent  System  at  New  Haven  of  having 
one  director  for  different  Sunday-schools.  This  has  been  successful  for  three 
years.  Teachers  from  half  a  dozen  churches  meet  under  one  leadership,  graded 
according  to  the  age  of  the  children  taught.  Kent  and  Coe  are  developing  a  new 
series  of  lessons  of  seventeen  grades  from  ages  four  to  twenty-one,  with  electives 
for  adults,  on  the  basis  of  child  psychology.  Non-Biblical  sources  are  used.  Chil- 
dren are  often  graded  as  they  are  in  the  day  schools.  At  the  age  of  thirteen  the 
hero-worshiping  instinct  is  given  a  rich  pabulum  in  the  biographies  of  great  men, 
and  this  is  continued  during  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  years  and  at  sixteen,  the 
age  of  most  frequent  conversions,  it  culminates  in  the  life  of  Jesus. 

^Jordan,  L.  H.,  and  Labanca,  B.  A  Study  of  Religion  in  the  Italian  Uni- 
versities.    Lond.,  Froud,  1909,  324  p. 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        195 

bolus  of  creed,  or  else  join  the  ranks  of  the  indifferent  or 
hostile.  The  supernatural  addresses  the  heart  only  and  not 
the  intellect ;  and  every  effort  to  force  it  upon  the  tender  soul 
of  youth  against  ingenuous  doubt  makes  havoc  with  belief  in 
the  actual  objectivity  of  all  that  is  incredible  to  the  naive 
logic  of  childhood,  taints  the  very  sense  of  truth  itself,  re- 
presses rather  than  stimulates  psychic  grov^^th  and,  instead  of 
advancing  unity  of  soul,  cleaves  the  mind  and  heart  in  two 
and  gives  two  standards,  or  else  implants  aversion  to  authority 
of  parents  and  religious  teachers,  and  hostility,  perhaps  too 
deep  to  be  conscious  at  first,  toward  all  the  great  verities  of 
faith,  contempt  for  litanies,  and  a  complacent  ignorance  of  the 
grandest  of  all  the  historic  traditions  of  the  race  and  its  sacred 
documents.  This  evil  is  so  vast  and  deep  that  its  full  purport 
is  little  seen  by  the  pedagogic  laity;  and  the  church  needs  a 
great  awakening  from  its  long  dogmatic  slumbers  if  it  is  to 
save  childhood  and  youth  from  the  skepticism  of  which  its 
own  fondly  cherished  methods,  and  not  science  or  philosophy, 
are  the  chief  cause. 

Here,  too,  the  ideal,  though  it  is  a  far-distant  goal,  is  to 
repeat  in  wisely  formulated  ways  the  history  of  the  race.  Act- 
ing under  this  rubric  we  should  learn  how  first  to  lay  broad 
and  deep  the  foundations  on  which  religion  rests,  and  which 
can  be  established  only  in  early  childhood  in  love  and  admira- 
tion of  nature,  and  in  the  passion  to  be  of  service  to  others. 
All  the  differentiations  even  between  the  great  ethnic  re- 
ligions should  come  a  little  later,  and  yet  later  those  between 
Catholicism  and  Protestantism  and  Judaism,  which  spring 
from  common  psychological,  as  well  as  historic,  roots ;  while 
last  of  all,  because  genetically  latest,  should  come,  if  they  are 
taught  at  all,  denominational  differences,  all  of  which  are 
slight  and  insignificant  as  compared  with  the  above  basal  and 
generic  teachings.  For  the  young,  as  for  pagans  in  the  mis- 
sionary field,  all  sectarian  differences  should  be  waived  or  con- 
cealed as  long  as  possible,  for  they  are  at  best  only  tiny  twigs 
of  a  season's  growth  on  the  grand  old  tree  of  religion.  If  the 
child  must  be  first  pagan,  make  it  a  good  pagan  at  that  stage, 
for  only  thus  and  then  will  it  be  qualified  to  go  on  to  higher 
things.  Give  supernaturalism  its  innings  in  this  nascent  sea- 
son, but  realize  that  all  its  forms  are  in  their  nature  decadent, 


196  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

like  leaves,  and  must  fall,  but  will  leave  the  parent  stem 
stronger  and  larger  with  each  crop  grown  and  shed.  Re- 
ligious growth  means  constant  change,  incessant  new  insights 
and  beliefs  ripening  one  after  another,  and  constant  substitu- 
tions of  more  for  less  perfect  forms.  Religion  is  the  apex  of 
humanistic  culture,  and  needs  eternal  revision.  To  be  eter- 
nally working  over  the  formulae  of  belief  and  the  ritual  of 
acts  and  conduct  expressive  of  it  is  the  very  essence  of  spir- 
itual growth,  and  dispensation  must  succeed  dispensation  in 
both  the  individual  soul  and  the  race ;  for  the  growth  of  really 
and  truly  religious  ideas  and  ideals  is  the  very  best  index  and 
measure  of  progress,  the  impulse  of  which  must  always  have 
the  right  of  way  over  everything  else  in  the  expanding  mind 
and  heart,  even  if  the  ultimate  goal  to  be  attained  remains  be- 
yond our  ken  "  Like  some  far-off  divine  event  toward  which 
the  whole  creation  moves." 

The  debt  of  education  to  Christianity  was  incalculable. 
Jesus  was  a  great  teacher,  brought  a  new  doctrine  and  rule  of 
life,  his  parables  are  portative,  pedagogic  devices  more  plain 
and  effective  than  Plato's  myths.  His  disciples  preached  and 
taught.  Origen  called  the  holy  spirit  the  divine  pedagogue, 
and  Tertullian  regarded  its  still  small  voice  as  a  new  muse  of 
truth.  When,  in  529  a.d.,  Justinian's  famous  edict  closed  the 
four  great  schools  of  classical  philosophy,  the  church  took  pos- 
session of  the  world  of  culture,  became  the  great  patron  of 
learning,  wrought  out  a  new  philosophy,  and  established  a 
score  of  great  universities  before  the  year  1400,  while,  ear- 
lier yet,  Charlemagne  and  Alcuin  had  established  the  clois- 
ter cathedral,  and  other  lower  schools,  where  reading,  writ- 
ing, and  the  seven  liberal  arts  were  taught.  For  centuries 
liberty  of  teaching  and  learning  was  almost  complete,  and 
Protestants  are  prone  to  do  scant  justice  to  the  educational 
foundations  laid  by  the  Catholic  Church  in  its  great  formative 
period.  When  she  began  to  grow  suspicious  of  new  learning, 
and  the  Renaissance  and  Reformation  arose,  we  find  Luther, 
Erasmus,  Calvin,  and  Melanchthon  establishing  schools  and  re- 
constructing courses,  and  nearly  twoscore  new  universities 
were  founded  by  this  influence.  It  was  again  profoundly  felt 
that  education  was  the  hope  and  method  of  Christianity,  and 
that  ignorance  and  superstition  were  the  parents  of  sin;  that 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN       i97 

enlightenment  was  the  best  and  surest  way  to  bring  man  to 
true  reHgion.  Thus,  almost  down  to  our  own  time,  the  clergy 
have  been  the  chief  teachers,  leaders,  and  inspirers  of  most  of 
the  best  things  done  in  education.  This  was  true  of  Catholics, 
Lutherans,  Puritans,  Anglicans,  and  the  rest.  Very  many  sec- 
ondary schools  and  still  more  colleges,  in  this  country,  owe 
their  origin  to  religious  belief.  One  of  the  first  articles  thus 
in  the  unwritten  creed  of  Christendom  has  been  Education. 
Even  when  the  influence  of  the  clergy  began  to  decline  in  the 
higher  academic  grades  of  culture,  they  were  in  all  Christian 
lands  long  its  chief  representatives  to  the  masses,  and  estab- 
lished and  directed  elementary  schools. 

Now  in  all  Christian  lands,  and  especially  among  Protes- 
tants, the  educational  supremacy  of  the  clergy  is  in  a  state  of 
rapid  decline.  There  has  been  a  growing  aversion  to  clerical 
influence,  and  secularization  has  long  been  the  ideal  in  many 
places.  The  clergy  should  awake  to  the  situation  betimes.  We 
would  not  minimize,  but  magnify,  their  efficacy  in  doing  the 
Master's  work  among  the  poor,  in  slums,  the  influence  of  the 
pulpit  against  corporate  greed,  oppression,  industrial  malprac- 
tice, social  evil,  political  corruption.  The  church  not  only 
prays,  but  works;  but  no  one  denies  that  its  efficacy  is  vastly 
below  its  great  traditions  in  the  past.  Meanwhile,  with  the 
development  of  secular  education,  there  has  grown  in  every 
land  an  increase  in  divorce  in  which  this  country  leads,  having 
more  courts  and  cases  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  so  that 
the  proportion  is  fast  approaching  one  tenth  of  all  who  marry. 
We  lead  in  homicides,  averaging  ten  thousand  per  year;  less 
than  five  per  cent  are  being  caught  and  punished,  as  against 
over  ninety  per  cent  in  Germany.  The  percentage  of  juvenile 
crime  is  rising,  hoodlumism,  general  feralization  of  youth, 
child  labor,  the  daily  chronicle  of  crime  and  vice  in  the  "  yel- 
low "  press,  and  the  many  statistics  of  juvenile  immorality  re- 
veal the  gravity  of  the  moral  situation. 

One  thing  the  churches  might  do — and  that  is,  while  main- 
taining as  long  as  they  will  their  denominational  (!iff"erences  of 
creed  and  forms  of  worship  on  Sunday,  to  fornuilate  a  pro- 
gramme of  week-day  work  in  education  in  the  broadest  sense 
of  that  word  and  open  their  splendid  property  to  all  who 
can  use  it  aright,  day  and  evening,  leaving  trinity,  incarna- 


198  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

tion,  revelation,  miracles,  salvation  in  another  world,  and  all 
other  dogmas,  however  precious  to  believers,  to  be  chiefly 
Lord's-day  matters.  Let  the  church  waive  all  these  distinctive 
doctrines  during  the  week  and  seek  ways  and  means  of  con- 
certed effort,  and  reassert  its  ancient  function  of  caring  for 
and  guiding  the  soul  of  youth  and  inspiring  it  to  moral  and 
personal  enthusiasm,  for  pure,  true  living  on  this  earth.  It 
is  by  its  own  deterioration,  from  overinsistence  upon  doctrines 
and  belief,  its  diminished  interest  in  science,  and  in  social  re- 
forms, that  it  has  forfeited  to  the  state  its  natural  function  of 
moral  training,  which  the  state  is  trying  so  bravely,  but  as  yet 
with  unsatisfactory  results,  to  perform.  This  situation  gives 
the  church  a  remarkable  new  opportunity  for  reasserting  its 
lost  functions.  Putting  aside  all  claim  of  ecclesiastical  author- 
ity and  every  theological  shibboleth,  and  animated  by  simple, 
fervent  love  of  man  and  by  the  crying  moral  needs  of  the 
present,  can  it  not  again  set  the  world  an  example  of  supreme 
service  in  a  crisis  of  dire  need  ?  To  do  this,  it  must  abandon 
once  and  forever  the  old  uncompromising  spirit  that  demands 
all  or  nothing,  and  realize  that  absolute  truth  and  virtue  are 
rarely  attainable  on  this  earth,  and  understand  profoundly  that 
the  second,  third,  or  twentieth  best  is  vastly  better  than  noth- 
ing at  all,  and  is  very  well  worth  doing.  If  the  state  will  not 
tolerate  theology  or  even  the  reading  of  the  Bible,  whence  has 
come  the  world's  greatest  inspiration  for  righteousness  and 
which  is  the  chief  text-book  of  psychology,  then  let  it  study  the 
methods  of  introducing  carefully  selected  ethical  readers  made 
by  religious  men  from  the  most  inspiring  classical  literature 
and  perhaps  the  Bibles  of  other  lands.  If  we  are  not  ready 
for  the  German  simnltan  schools  by  which  Protestants  and 
Catholics  combine  their  pedagogic  efforts  on  a  few  funda- 
mentals, at  least  some  Protestant  sects  might  begin  by  increas- 
ing their  efforts  in  the  mission  field,  sharing  the  maintenance 
of  expensive  sectarian  organizations  there.  They  might,  as 
some  are  doing,  de-denominationalize  each  of  their  colleges, 
and  seek  by  so  doing  to  confirm,  deepen,  and  broaden  their 
common  Christian  character.  The  state,  neither  here  nor  in 
any  land,  will  ever  again  tolerate  any  creed  or  confession.  Its 
religion  is  patriotism,  and  the  school  is  now  its  nursery,  as 
the  church  was  of  piety.     Science,  too,  will  never  assent  to  the 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRAINING   OF   CHILDREN        199 

dogmatic  method ;  but  Christianity  should  not  be  expurgated 
from  the  art,  religion,  history,  humanities,  which  it  has  done 
so  much  all  these  centuries  to  create,  and  without  which  even 
they  cannot  rightly  be  understood,  and  lacking  some  knowl- 
edge or  feeling  for  which  our  children  are  not  unlike  deaf- 
mutes  studying  music.  Better  virtue  without  Christianity  than 
Christianity  without  virtue,  if  such  an  antithesis  ever  become 
necessary  so  that  we  must  choose  between  these  two.  Why 
should  we  not  recognize  the  God  of  things  as  they  are  and, 
accepting  the  inevitable  with  what  joy  we  can,  according  to 
the  old  Stoic  maxim,  try  to  rise  to  the  opportunity  of  leading 
this  great  and  impending  movement  for  moral  education,  more 
pressing  and  promising  than  anything  else  in  the  history  of 
the  schools  for  the  last  century,  and  ourselves  work  out  a 
programme,  godless  and  even  Bibleless  if  it  must  be  in  name, 
utilizing  to  the  uttermost  the  sentiments  of  mutual  help,  social 
service,  honor,  patriotism,  pagan  though  they  be  in  origin, 
realizing  that  Christianity  itself  is  not  all  ecclesiastical  or  the- 
ological, but  that  a  purely  secular  w^eek-day  religion  can  and 
must  be  wrought  out,  and  that  the  detailed  methods  for  so 
doing  are  already  within  sight  and  reach.  The  institutional 
church  has  many  a  lesson  we  must  heed. 


CHAPTER   V 

MORAL    EDUCATION 

Philosophical  basis — The  ethical  culture  movement — International  con- 
gress— Morals  without  religion  in  Japan  and  France — Epitome  of 
the  views  of  many  writers — Need  of  moral  education  and  of  larger 
views  on  morals — Effects  of  feminism — Difference  of  sexes — Mother 
and  child — Flogging,  scolding,  praise,  fighting,  revenge,  stealing — 
Acquaintance  with  badness — Companions — Truancy — Honoring  par- 
ents— Bravery — Justice — Moral  topics  in  the  curriculum — Industrial 
training — Reform  schools — Physical  education — Habits  and  morals — 
Sophistication  of  conscience — Honor — Mastery  and  specialization — 
Effects  of  the  long  vacation,  of  absence  of  families  in  summer — Child 
labor — Social  workers  and  psychological  experts  for  schools — Corre- 
lating agencies — Laziness  as  a  root  of  immorality — Pupil  self-govern- 
ment in  the  grades,  high  school  and  college — The  pedagogy  of 
juvenile  crime  and  court — Youth  our  chief  national  resource. 

This  is  considered  the  most  vital  and  the  most  difficult  of 
all  the  many  vast  problems  now  before  the  American  people. 
It  is  not  for  educators  alone,  but  for  the  nation  to  solve.  It 
is  the  problem  in  which  all  the  deep  questions  touching  the 
perpetuity  of  our  race  and  people  culminate,  and  one  in  which 
a  great  awakening  seems  by  every  sign  to  impend.  Already 
the  literature  in  the  field  is  enormous,  the  partial  schemes 
many,  and  the  interest  almost  daily  broadening  and  deepening, 
although  we  do  not  as  yet  fully  see  all  the  dimensions  of  the 
problem. 

The  Background. — Education  seeks  to  fashion  and  fur- 
nish an  environment  of  facilitization  for  the  development 
of  all  the  best  human  possibilities  up  to  their  maximal  maturity 
and  power.  From  the  standpoint  of  pragmatism  (which  is 
nothing  but  pedagogy  asserting  its  sovereignty  throughout  the 
whole  field  of  culture),  one  is  almost  tempted  to  say  that  the 
soul  can  no  longer  be  regarded  as  unitary,  but  as  a  manifold 
or  congeries  of  souls.     At  any  rate,  the  term  "  Individuum  " 


MORAL   EDUCATION  201 

is  no  longer  applicable,  as  personality  is  made  up  of  various 
elemental  psyches,  few  in  some,  many  in  others,  now  com- 
pactly and  now  very  loosely  constellated,  some  of  them  per- 
sistently repressed  and  others  forced  and  overstimulated  like 
the  various  ids  and  determinants  of  somatic  heredity.  Traits, 
characters,  attributes,  faculties,  marks,  propensities,  etc.,  are 
often  so  flimsily  knit  together  in  it  that  they  can  vary  more  or 
less  independently  of  each  other  under  the  influence  of  train- 
ing and  environment,  so  that  the  cultivation  of  one  may  have 
little  or  no  effect  upon  that  of  the  others,  and  may  even  check 
their  unfoldment.  Thus,  in  the  light  of  many  careful  recent 
researches,  it  seems  somewhat  doubtful  whether  there  are 
studies  that  develop,  or  tests  that  can  measure,  general  ability. 
Thus,  practically  at  least,  the  soul  may  now  be  regarded  as 
composite  rather  than  monadic,  and  hence  ideally  there  are  as 
many  educations  as  there  are  diversities  in  the  make-up  of 
human  nature. 

Again,  certain  elemental  human  traits  suggest  and  perhaps 
go  back  to  a  few  of  the  instinctive  prehuman  animal  types 
which  run  parallel  with  morphological  distinctions.  Each  ani- 
mal group  may  represent  some  quality  in  great  excess,  the 
high  selective  value  of  which  made  possible  the  development 
and  survival  of  a  species,  genus,  or  more  probably  a  group ;  as, 
e.  g.,  aggressiveness  in  the  carnivora,  timidity,  deceit,  or  cun- 
ning in  animals  long  preyed  upon,  etc.  Each  trait  is  thus  a 
fulfilled  possibility  of  evolution  in  some  specific  direction. 
Now,  when,  by  the  study  also  of  the  forms  of  degeneration  in 
man  or  by  that  of  markedly  peculiar  children,  we  find  con- 
vergence or  similarity  of  these  three  fields,  investigated  inde- 
pendently of  each  other,  it  would  seem  that  we  are  really 
approaching  a  true  alphabet  or  stoichiology  of  character  or 
ethology  in  the  sense  that  Stuart  Mill  first  conceived  it. 
Among  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  animal  forms,  each  hav- 
ing evolved  its  adaptations  by  stimuli  and  reductives,  and  by 
trial  and  error,  into  codes  of  food-getting,  reproduction, 
group  organization,  etc.,  it  is  impossible  not  to  Ijelieve  that 
such  very  fundamental  traits  as  sympathy,  pride,  desire  of 
ownership,  irascibility,  the  instinct  of  leadership,  and  many 
otiier  moral  and  immoral  traits  are  so  persistent  because 
they    have    been    making    through    the    geologic    ages,    and 


202  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

have  behind  them  a  strong  hereditary,  phyletic  momentum. 
Thus,  when  we  deal  with  such  impulsions,  the  scruple  of 
Plato,  whether  virtue  can  be  taught,  is  inevitable.  What- 
ever religion  may  be  able  to  do,  moralism  is  not  yet  far 
advanced  in  the  art  of  analyzing  or  synthetizing  such  paleo- 
psychic  traits,  or  even  in  regulating  what  Bahnsen  called 
their  posodynism  or  dosage.  Neither  can  it  transmute  the 
four  temperaments  of  the  old  phrenologists,  which  modern 
studies  of  disposition  are  rehabilitating,  or  change  the  con- 
genital eye-,  ear,-  or  motor-mindedness  or  innate  proclivity 
to  certain  moods,  feelings,  emotions,  or  sentiments.  Con- 
cerning all  this  field,  psychology  is  now  realizing  how  little 
it  knows  or  can  do.  It  is  because  the  soul  has  so  many 
strains,  old  and  new,  braided,  woven,  or  felted  together 
in  so  many  ways,  some  of  which  are  integrated  as  with  bonds 
of  fate,  while  others  are  very  liable  to  se junction,  that  the 
systems  of  moral  training  can  at  best  educate  only  parts  of  the 
soul  in  certain  ways  and  for  certain  times ;  while  teachers  in 
this  field,  far  more  often  than  in  others,  realize  the  limitations 
that  baffle  all  the  resources  of  their  craft.  Loyalty  and  treach- 
ery, naivete  and  innate  Blasiertheit,h3ishiu\ness  and  effrontery, 
love  and  hate,  self-repression  and  habitual  abandon,  chronic 
timidity  and  fearlessness,  kindness  and  cruelty,  spirituality 
and  sensuality,  temperance  and  passion,  inclinations  to  solitude 
or  society,  caution  and  recklessness,  conservatism  and  radical- 
ism, squandering  and  miserliness,  prudery  and  shamelessness, 
truthfulness  and  falsity,  etc. ;  indeed,  even  such  philosophical 
characters  as  are  expressed  by  such  terms  as  dogmatist,  skeptic, 
stoic,  idealist,  sensualist,  realist,  positivist,  and  all  the  rest; 
even  qualities  so  nondescript  and  outre  that  only  "  slanguage  " 
can  describe  them — cad,  mucker,  slob,  mope,  yap,  hobo,  flunky, 
shrew,  hag,  poser,  hustler,  quitter,  prig,  guy,  plunger,  rubber; 
or  animal  names  applied  to  human  beings — mule,  cat,  hog, 
dove,  peacock,  goose,  fly,  fox,  vixen,  lion,  eagle,  jay,  viper, 
clam,  lobster,  and  countless  more — the  mere  suggestion  of  all 
these  is  sufficient  to  show  how  populous  with  the  possibilities 
of  character,  good  and  bad,  the  soul  is,  and  how  inveterately 
and  fatefully  it  is  dowered,  and  amidst  what  limitations  there- 
fore the  work  of  moral  nurture  must  be  carried  on,  and  how 
grave  the  danger  that  any  and  every  leash  may  be  slipped  and 


MORAL   EDUCATION  203 

vicious,  if  not  feral,  instincts  break  away  from  all  regulations 
and  run  riot. 

Kant  and  the  phrenologists,  also  Lotze,  Bain,  and  now 
Perez,  Paulhan,  Feuillet,  Ribot,  Malapert,  and  Lang,  in  their 
studies  of  character,  have  all  of  them  attempted  little  but  classi- 
fications, some  of  them  quite  elaborate.  But  to-day  individual 
psychology,  although  so  much  of  it  is  devoted  to  exceptional 
or  abnormal  cases,  is  going  back  to  nature,  laying  broader 
foundations,  and  bringing  in  the  evolutionary  perspective,  un- 
til, through  archaeology  and  the  remains  of  savage  life,  we 
are  beginning  to  glimpse  the  still  more  remote  and  larger  back- 
ground of  comparative  psychology.  Thus,  we  are  realizing 
that  the  more  basal  human  traits  are  the  older  and  more  ani- 
mal in  their  origin,  and  that  in  general  the  more  educable  of) 
man's  qualities  are  those  that  are  latest  acquired.  Thus,  al- 
though man's  is  only  one  of  the  types  of  mind  in  the  world, 
it  rests  back  upon  a  wide  biological  basis  common  to  all  the 
types  of  mind.  Some  psychic  traits  are  as  clear-cut  as  physical 
functions  like  respiration,  and  probably  as  old  and  as  unmodi- 
fiable,  while  other  nascent  ones  are  as  amorphous  and  plastic 
as  codes  of  etiquette.  Thus,  if  we  assume  that  the  sphere  of 
moral  education  covers  precept,  discipline,  habituation,  train- 
ing, regimen,  manners,  deportment,  etc.,  wide  as  this  makes 
its  sphere,  it  is  yet  small  compared  with  the  whole  of  man's 
psychic  life.  While  religion  and  perhaps  psychotherapy  may 
often  control  some  of  the  older  and  stronger  energies  of  the 
soul  than  the  best  morals  can  reach,  there  stretch  beyond 
both  of  them  ranges  of  psychic  life,  the  betterment  of  which 
is  desirable  and  conceivable  if  the  superman  is  ever  to  arrive, 
or  if  man  is  ever  to  approach  perfection  of  body  and  soul  in  a 
perfect  community  in  which  all  the  best  possibilities  of  both 
shall  be  fully  realized  and  all  the  worst  eliminated.  Neither 
young  nor  old  should  lose  the  splendid  ancient  vision  that  has 
inspired  so  many  of  the  prophets,  saints,  and  apostles  of 
righteousness,  viz.,  of  some  ideal  state,  commonwealth,  or 
millennium,  city  or  kingdom  of  God,  Utopia,  etc.,  where  most 
ethical  characters  and  organizations  are  found.  In  the  pain- 
ful stniggle  for  slight,  gradual  amelioration  of  ])rcsent  evils. 
we  should  keep  some  dream  chamlier  in  our  many-niansioned 
soul,  where  we  can  occasionally  retire  and  revel  in  the  imag- 


204  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

inations  of  perfection,  and  hearten  ourselves  by  yielding 
to  the  fancy  of  all  good  wishes  fulfilled  and  all  high  ideals 
realized. 

The  attitude  of  thoroughbred  moralism  of  to-day,  as  culled 
from  the  utterances  of  some  of  its  leading  representatives,  may 
be  roughly  characterized  by  phrases  like  the  following:  Why 
waste  goodness  and  love  on  God  who  is  a  distant,  perhaps  a 
schematic  and  even  imaginary  being,  and  who,  if  He  exists, 
has  no  need  of  our  help,  while  our  fellow  men  are  in  direst 
need  of  it?  How  much  better  mankind  would  be  if  all  the 
service  that  had  been  lavished  upon  and  the  sacrifice  offered 
to  God  had  been  turned  to  the  benefit  of  our  own  species  ?  To 
say  that  man  has  no  rights  as  ag'ainst  God  is  treason  to  the 
race.  Virtues  are  not  means  to  some  end  beyond  our  ken,  but 
ends  in  themselves.  Complete  human  life  is  the  supreme  good. 
Hope  of  future  rewards  and  fears  of  penalties  in  another  life 
are  unworthy  motives  which  make  goodness  impure ;  they  are 
selfishness  for  two  worlds  instead  of  for  one.  Pragmatism 
smalls  down  the  divine  and  makes  it  the  soul  of  this  earth,  or 
at  least  of  the  solar  system,  and  this  helps  a  little  from  vasta- 
tion  or  dissipation  of  moral  energy  into  the  infinities.  Man  is 
not  justified  by  faith,  but  by  works,  and  perhaps  Gesinmmgen. 
Who  cares  whether  the  cosmic  order  itself  is  moral  or  not? 
It  is  enough  that  the  social  order  be  so.  Not  sacrifice  and  ab- 
negation, but  the  fullest  self-realization  should  be  our  aim. 
Let  our  leaders  be  the  faithful  Eckhardts  of  the  people,  quick- 
ening their  conscience,  and  always  alert  for  their  betterment. 
It  is  a  far  cry  to  any  of  the  ultimates  or  absolutes,  whether 
conceived  as  metaphysical  entities  or  as  abstract  perfection, 
first  cause,  truth,  siimmmn  bonum,  or  as  any  or  all  products 
of  theological  or  philosophical  percolation ;  but  to  do  our  pres- 
ent duty  should  be  our  religion,  and  to  render  help  is  better 
than  worship.  Love  diffused  to  all  being  is  too  tenuous  and 
inefficient,  and,  indeed,  it  should  not  be  extended  too  far  on 
the  present  earth,  but  our  moral  endeavors  should  be  concen- 
trated to  those  we  can  really  serve.  As  to  the  clergy  and 
the  church,  they  have  had  their  opportunity,  and  failed;  they 
have  not  saved  modern  society,  and  so  let  us  turn  to  temporal, 
secular,  and  mundane  agencies  and  see  what  moral  power  can 
be  evolved  from  them !    We  derogate  virtue  if  we  assume  that 


MORAL   EDUCATION  205 

it  depends  upon  religion,  and  has  no  independent  motivation 
of  its  own.  Man's  destiny  is  not  conditioned  upon  a  celestial 
transaction  or  on  an  historic  tragedy,  nor  are  any  of  the  genu- 
ine merits  vicarious ;  these  fitted  only  a  mythological  stage, 
and  are  the  baby  talk  of  ethics  that  is  outgrown  by  all  who 
come  to  full  maturity.  If  there  ever  was  a  God,  even  though 
He  be  now  dead,  He  may  have  given  man  the  light  within, 
but  it  is  there,  at  any  rate,  and  is  a  sufficient  guide,  or  else 
He  did  His  work  badly.  Out  of  human  nature  as  it  is,  all  can 
be  made  that  man  needs.  All  that  the  church  now  requires 
can  be  based  on  an  innate  moral  law  not  contingent  upon  any 
beliefs  or  theories.  The  codes  of  conduct  sanctioned  by  the 
old  religions  are  now  quite  inadequate  to  meet  the  complex 
needs  of  modem  life,  practical  philanthropy,  and  reform.  Do- 
ing right  deeds  is  an  organ  of  knowing  true  creeds.  There 
must  be  not  only  moral  endeavor  but  passion,  and  right  living 
is  the  real  religion  of  rational  man.  Some  claim  that  with 
this  spirit  the  church  of  the  future,  if  it  has  a  future,  must  be 
animated — that  no  one  can  become  truly  religious  until  he  has 
accumulated  considerable  personal  experience  in  moralizing 
himself  and  his  environment.  Even  if  Christianity  itself  was 
the  original  ethical-culture  society,  the  movement  has  far  out- 
grown it,  so  that  it  has  mainly  an  antiquarian  interest  for  the 
modern  moralist,  who  must  seek  to  better  the  world  by  purely 
natural,  human  means.  A  few  speak  of  an  ethical  church  with 
morality  as  its  God,  somewhat  as  Goethe  said  that  science  and 
art  were  his  religion. 

In  1893  Desjardins  organized  a  "  Society  for  Moral  Ac- 
tion," a  term  its  members  preferred  to  "  Ethical  Culture." 
Their  aim  was  personal  moral  improvement  by  doing  "  the 
present  duty."  Only  by  "  acting  the  moral  with  all  one's 
might  "  can  intellectual  doubts  be  cleared  up,  or  an  inner 
Christianity  elaborated  apart  from  historical  and  metaphysical 
dogmas.  "  An  interior  Christ  "  must  be  discovered  or  built 
up,  or  both.  Vital  faith  is  as  incommunicable  by  words  and 
as  inexpressible  in  formulae  as  character.  Otherwise,  one  need 
only  to  be  able  to  read  in  order  to  believe.  Real  skepticism  is 
incompleteness  of  life,  while  true  faith  is  realized  only  in  con- 
duct. By  willing  spiritually  the  right  and  good  at  every  step 
with  originality  and  individual  initiative,  by  becoming  our  own 


2o6  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

masters,  lawgivers  yet  law-bound,  by  the  daily  practice  of 
daily  sacrifice,  service,  and  purity,  we  generate  in  our  inner 
experience  all  the  essentials  that  religion  characterizes  as  re- 
demption, faith,  grace,  regeneration,  etc.,  and  realize  that  the- 
ology is  only  the  attempt  to  describe  the  higher  life  of  the  soul 
in  objective  terms.  Its  phrases  express  the  palpitating  realities 
of  the  psychic  life;  but,  like  paper  currency,  the  impressions 
become  faded,  they  wear  out,  and  need  to  be  cashed  in  or  re- 
solved back  to  their  specie  basis. 

In  Germany,  von  Egedy  ^  represents  the  culmination  of  an 
ethical-culture  movement,  which,  as  here  and  in  England  and 
France,  has  a  very  small  but  very  select  following  (hardly 
more  than  from  three  thousand  to  five  thousand  in  either  land). 
It  is  not  for  children,  much  as  all  these  societies  concern  them- 
selves for  their  moral  training,  but  is  preeminently  for  the 
most  mature,  adult,  cultivated,  male  mind.  It  is  significant 
that  the  German  movement  flowers  in  men  like  the  astronomer 
Furster  and  von  Egedy,  who  find  the  religious  element  indis- 
pensable. For  the  latter,  Christianity  is  essentially  an  allegory 
that  needs  to  be  transmuted  into  life.  Those  who  are  most 
orthodox  and  to  whom  religious  facts  or  principles  are  most 
extraneous,  absolute,  theological,  know  least  of  it,  far  less  even 
than  the  sinner  who  knows,  in  his  own  life,  the  eternal  powers, 
and  feels  deeply,  although  he  may  resist  their  truth.  This  is 
neo-Christianism,  which  insists  that  ethical  aspirations  and  in- 
sights proceed  from  the  depths  of  the  soul,  individual  and 
social,  just  as  they  created  Christianity  out  of  themselves,  and 
must  now  resorb  and  recast  it  again.  Though  the  forms  of 
both  piety  and  conduct  be  changed  in  the  processes  of  adjust- 
ment to  modern  times,  and  though  there  be  genuine  enlarge- 
ment and  aggressive  development,  the  substance  remains  un- 
changed. The  best  of  the  neo-Christians  seek  to  make  and  to 
keep  themselves  more  acutely  sensitive  to  moral  distinctions, 
in  and  about  them,  than  others.  They  dread  acquiescence. 
They  burn  to  know  the  good  and  to  do  the  right.  They  would 
be  moral  saints,  ethical  revivalists,  not  slaves  but  the  apostles 
and  the  evangelists  of  duty,  and  would  make  doing  the  good 

*  See  Meyerhardt,  M.  W.,  The  Movement  for  Ethical  Culture  at  Home  and 
Abroad.  American  Journal  of  Religious  Psychology  and  Education,  May,  1908, 
vol.  3,  pp.  71-153. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  ^07 

the  organ  of  knowing  the  truth.  They  are  no  Eremites  but 
keenly  feel  the  great  evils  in  our  public  and  private  life,  and 
will  not  grow  complacent  as  they  grow  familiar  with  them  ;  but 
they  would  reform  the  world  by  the  slow  methods  of  personal 
endeavor  and  example  and  do  not  expect  revolution  or  social 
upheaval,  much  as  they  exhort  great  deeds  by  great  men. 
Neither  material  nor  scientific  progress  is  secure  unless  moral 
improvement  goes  along  with  it,  and  because  it  does  not  and 
has  not  done  so,  they  feel  that  the  present  situation  is  very  pre- 
carious. They  would,  however,  ameliorate  the  present  condi- 
tion by  educating  the  young.  But  the  material  they  work  with 
is  too  refined  and  their  methods  precociously  subjective  for 
children,  while  very  much  that  is  essential  to  the  growing  mind 
is  so  transmuted  that  it  seems  omitted.  Thus,  their  work  of 
moral  education  lacks  at  once  fervor  and  objectivity.  Perhaps 
no  men,  not  even  the  Stoic  sages,  have  arisen  to  greater  moral 
altitudes  or  have  been  more  smitten  with  the  sense  of  the 
transcendent  beauty  of  the  good  life,  or  realize  more  completely 
that  virtue  is  not  a  gift  freely  imparted  but  a  prize  to  be  won 
by  long,  unremitting  toil.  Few,  too,  have  succeeded  for  them- 
selves in  so  far  eliminating  the  supernatural,  so  that  little  sense 
of  it  is  left  in  their  own  minds;  but  children  need  much  of  it 
and  in  crass  form,  as  a  provocative  for  self-knowledge.  Re- 
ligion is  at  root  the  most  precious  experience  of  the  race — i.  e., 
it  is  ethical  experience  transmitted  and  essentially  inherited. 
Without  this,  moral  teaching  leaves  the  children  cold,  in- 
structed but  not  impelled,  ripe  when  they  should  be  still  in  the 
green. 

Anticlericalism  and  antiecclesiasticism  have,  in  Germany, 
France,  and  England,  fused  to  some  extent  with  socialism  and 
labor  movements  and  entered  politics ;  and  many  and  bitter 
have  been  the  denunciations  of  established  religion  by  those 
who  are  sincerely  devoted  to  the  moral  betterment  of  mankind. 
But  more  and  more,  even  among  leaders  at  first  hostile,  is 
growing  the  conviction  that  religion  itself  in  some  form  is  an 
inexpugnable  element  of  all  moral  education  for  the  young, 
and  that  its  pedagogical  uses  cannot  be  entirely  dispensed 
with. 

In  New  York  in  1907  the  societies  for  ethical  Ciilture  of 
that  city,  Chicago,  St.  Louis,  and  Philadel[)hia  were  federated 


2o8  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

as  the  American  Ethical  Union.  They  unanimously  refused  to 
be  a  religious  organization,  and  yet  a  representative  speaker 
declared  that  ethical  religion  is  the  necessary  crown  and  com- 
pletion of  religious  thought ;  and  again,  "  Our  success  depends 
on  whether  we  are  religious."  Again,  "  What  social  effort 
needs  to-day  is  religion."  Again,  "  The  appeal  of  the  moral 
ideal  for  social  service  is  the  appeal  of  religion."  Dr.  Adler 
closed  with  a  fervid  call,  when  the  world  is  now  rocking  as  in 
an  earthquake,  to  a  religious  ministry  of  such  ethical  preaching 
as  that  of  the  prophet  Isaiah,  and  bloodguiltiness  is  risked  if 
we  refuse  this  call.  Wundt  declares  that  the  moral  ideal  be- 
longs to  the  realm  of  the  infinite. 

The  International  Congress  on  Moral  Education,  held  in 
London,  September  25-29,  1908,  brought  together  representa- 
tives of  eighteen  nations,  thirteen  universities,  and  official  dele- 
gates from  over  a  hundred  educational  organizations,  who  lis- 
tened to  some  one  hundred  and  twenty  papers  printed  in  its 
proceedings.^  There  was  very  great  diversity  of  opinion.  In- 
deed, Sacller,^  its  English  leader,  says  "  There  was  no  general 
agreement."  Along  with  intense  sincerity  there  was  also  mu- 
tual respect,  and  the  temper  of  controversy  was  restrained  and 
deep-seated  prejudices  softened,  so  that  some  went  away  with 
the  optimistic  hope  of  an  ultimate  synthesis  of  apparently  op- 
posed teachings.  Perhaps  the  most  deep-seated  divergences 
were  on  the  question  of  the  relations  of  moral  to  religious  edu- 
cation, as  to  the  value  of  systematic  and  direct  versus  indirect 
and  incidental  moral  instruction,  and  whether  the  great  Eng- 
lish public  schools  fostered  a  sense  of  civic  obligation.  The 
profound  English  movement  tow^ard  the  secularization  of  edu- 
cation had  aroused  public  interest  to  a  high  pitch  and  did  much 
to  make  this,  the  eleventh  International  Congress  held  in  Lon- 
don during  the  year,  the  most  impressive  of  all  for  the  press 
and  the  people.  After  listening  to  several  able  papers  by 
eminent  representatives  of  the  Catholic,  Anglican,  and  various 
independent  churches,  it  must  have  been  a   solemn  and  im- 

*  Papers  on  moral  education  communicated  to  the  First  International  Moral 
Education  Congress  in  London.  Edited  by  Gustav  Spiller.  London,  David 
Nutt,  1908,  404  p. 

^  Sadler,  M.  E.,  The  International  Congress  on  Moral  Education,  International 
Journal  of  Ethics,  1908-9,  vol.  19,  pp.  158-72. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  209 

pressive  moment  when  the  venerable  M.  Buisson,  representing 
France,  presented  the  conclusion  of  that  country  that  morals 
could  now  be  effectively  taught  on  a  purely  secular  basis  with- 
out any  aid  from  or  sanctions  of  religion,  and  recounted  in 
brief  and  eloquent  words  the  movement  in  this  direction  which 
took  form  in  the  organic  law  of  1886  that  separated  public 
education  from  ecclesiastical  influence.  Many  Anglo-Saxons 
had  not  before  fully  realized  what  the  religion  of  duty  and  of 
socialism  meant,  nor  understood  the  magnitude  or  momentum 
of  the  movement  by  which  the  state  is  now  slowly  assuming 
the  function  of  training  for  virtue,  a  task  which  the  church  had 
so  long  claimed  as  its  own.  Grave  and  solemn  as  this  issue 
is  becoming  for  the  w^orld  to-day,  the  dominant  sentiment  in 
England,  and  to  a  great  extent  in  this  country,  was  well  voiced 
by  the  aged  Bishop  of  Hereford  at  the  close  of  the  debate  on 
this  subject,  who  said,  "  The  religious  teacher  and  the  moral 
teacher  have  the  same  need,  the  same  end,  which  is  to  build 
up  conduct  and  character  and  good  purpose  in  the  child.  .  .  . 
I  would  venture,  as  an  old  man,  to  suggest  to  the  young  teach- 
ers who  are  enthusiastic  for  moral  teaching  and  afraid  of  re- 
ligious teaching  that  the  difference  between  the  two  might  be 
expressed  by  the  difference  between  the  circle  and  the  parabola. 
In  the  circle  you  confine  yourself  to  what  is  within  a  limited 
boundary.  In  the  parabola  you  have  on  one  side  this  same 
limited  boundary,  but  on  the  other  it  reaches  out  to  the  infi- 
nite. .  .  .  Whether  we  are  teaching  religion  or  teaching  moral- 
ity, let  us  remember  that  in  the  teaching  of  these  things  the 
best  of  our  teachers  will  rise  till  they  touch  the  spheres." 
Buisson  expresses  the  same  sentiment.  "  Science  does  not  ex- 
haust the  real,  nor  conscience  the  ideal."  Religion  is  needed 
"  to  unite  the  good,  beautiful,  and  true  into  one  supreme  and 
perfect  unity,  which  religion  designates  as  God." 

In  America  the  Religious  Education  Association  was 
founded  "  to  inspire  the  educational  forces  of  our  country  with 
the  religious  ideal  and  the  religious  forces  of  our  country  with 
the  educational  ideal."  Its  representatives  believe  that  educa- 
tion must  be  more  spiritual  and  religion  more  intelligent  to 
resist  the  commercializing,  not  to  say  vulgarizing,  influences 
of  American  life.  This  association  has  over  two  thousand 
members,  has  held  five  conventions,  at  which  several  hundred 
15 


2IO  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

addresses  were  given,  printed  five  volumes  and  many  thousand 
pamphlets,  and  has  held  conferences  and  made  investigations 
of  religious  conditions,  and  has  had  on  the  whole  a  most 
wholesome,  if  not  as  yet  a  very  potent  influence  upon  Ameri- 
can education. 

Japan. — Speaking  of  those  systems  that  go  furthest  in  dis- 
pensing with  religion,  Japan  seems  now  to  have  in  most  re- 
spects the  best  organized,. most  detailed,  and  efificient  of  all  sys- 
tems of  moral  education,  and  no  other  nation  makes  this  so  car- 
dinal. For  seven  centuries  education  was  based  on  Confucius, 
whose  teachings  are  essentially  ethical,  who  ignored  every- 
thing supernatural,  had  no  use  for  gods  or  a  future  life,  but 
made  conduct  basal.  With  the  Miegi  reformation  in  1868 
education  was  reconstructed  and  made  more  intellectual  save 
in  its  moral  aspect,  but  here  no  European  models  were  found 
that  were  deemed  worthy,  and  so  the  culture  of  virtue  did  not 
advance,  and  for  twenty  years  there  was  growing  confusion 
in  theory  and  practice.  Western  theories  of  ethics  were  stud- 
ied and  found  their  partisans.  Herbart's  Gesinnungs-U ntcr- 
richt  was  introduced  in  some  quarters,  while  Buddhism  and 
Christianity  were  botli  advocated,  even  by  those  who  did  not 
believe  them  to  be  final,  as  the  best  practical  bases  for  morals. 
Then  came  the  epoch-making  edict  of  the  Mikado  in  1890, 
less  than  half  a  page  of  this  volume  in  length,  which  is  not 
only  a  remarkable  document  in  itself,  but  was  received  al- 
most as  a  revelation  from  on  high.  It  demanded  training 
in  loyalty,  reverence,  patriotism,  filial  piety,  moderation,  cour- 
age, etc.,  according  to  the  traditions  of  ancient  times  and  the 
spirit  of  the  constitution  of  the  nation.  The  royal  house  has 
reigned  for  more  than  twenty-five  hundred  years  in  an  un- 
broken line,  and  during  all  this  time  no  pretender  or  usurper 
has  ever  even  attempted  to  dispute  its  sway.  The  imperial 
destiny  with  this  remarkable  continuity  is  closely  bound  up 
with  ancestor  worship.  Twice,  alien  civilizations  have  been 
adopted,  but  Buddhism  and  Christianity  alike  had  to  accom- 
modate themselves  to  the  spirit  of  the  empire,  while  during 
the  centuries  of  military  shoguns  the  reverence  for  the  im- 
perial house  never  changed.  This  helps  us  to  understand 
why  this  rescript  was  more  than  a  new  article  in  a  constitu- 
tion or  than  a  charter  or  even  a  papal  bull.     It  was  almost  a 


MORAL   EDUCATION  211 

sacred  text,  to  be  learned,  preached  on,  because  respect  for  the 
dynasty  made  such  a  promulgation  from  it  regarded  with  a 
veneration  little  short  of  religious.  In  1899,  to  clear  up  con- 
fusion and  divergencies  that  were  still  unsettled,  a  committee 
was  appointed  to  compile  a  moral  text-book  for  all  elementary 
schools,  and  in  1902  its  work  was  finished.  From  a  few  of 
the  chief  points  of  this  national  system  of  moral  education  we 
may  infer  something  as  to  its  scope  and  power. ^  The  adora- 
tion of  the  emperor  gives  to  the  system  something  not  unlike 
a  religious  sanction,  and  yet  it  is  entirely  secular  save  so  far 
as  reverence  to  the  emperor  and  ancestors,  whose  spirit  is 
believed  to  be  actually  alive  and  active  in  their  descendants, 
is  religious.  The  present  system,  it  must  also  be  said,  is  made 
directly  continuous  with  the  old  learning  which  a  few  cen- 
turies ago  was  kept  alive  chiefly  in  Buddhist  temples  and  in 
the  training  of  the  Samurai,  in  military  exercises,  in  hardship, 
obedience,  perseverance,  coolness,  resourcefulness,  managing 
affairs  of  home,  etc.,  the  latter  training  being  not  unlike  that 
of  an  ideal  English  gentleman,  and  insisting  chiefly  on  duties 
and  but  little  on  rights.  Morals  have  always  been  deemed 
the  chief  end  of  education.  For  children  from  six  to  fourteen 
years  of  age,  topics  most  necessary  to  the  life  of  childhood 
with  special  reference  to  the  degree  of  development,  sex,  etc., 
are  those  chiefly  stressed.  Theoretically,  every  child,  what- 
ever its  class,  enters  the  public  school,  and  a  special  permit 
is  required  to  be  educated  in  a  private  school  or  at  home. 
First  comes  instruction  in  respect  to  elders,  parents,  frugality, 
industry,  modesty,  fidelity,  and  then  duties  toward  the  state 
and  society,  with  special  emphasis  on  chastity  and  modesty 
for  girls.  These  virtues  are  taken  up  singly  and  illustrated 
by  tales  of  good  deeds,  by  proverbs,  short  ])ieces  to  be  read, 
pictures,  etc.  On  entering  school,  children  are  taught  to  ap- 
preciate and  love  it,  made  to  understand  they  come  to  be  good 
men  and  women,  that  it  is  a  pleasant  place ;  the  teacher  must 


'  See  The  Spirit  of  Japanese  Education  with  Special  Reference  to  Methods  of 
Moral  Instruction  and  Training  in  DifTcrent  Grades  of  Schools,  hv  Banin  Kikuchi, 
on  Moral  Instruction  and  Training  in  Sch<K)is.  Kdited  by  M.  K.  Sadler.  Ix)ndon, 
Longmans,  (Ireen,  iqoS,  vol.  2,  p[).  319-45.  Supplemented  hy  Dr.  \'oshida,  Notes 
on  Methods  of  M(jral  In.struction  in  Jai)an.  Ibid.,  pp.  346-49.  See  also  J.  A. 
B.  S<herer,  Young  Ja])an.     Philadelphia,  Lippincott,  1905,  )2S  p. 


212  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

see  to  it  that  there  is  an  air  of  warmth,  kindness,  and  dignity. 
Pupils  are  drilled  on  rising,  standing,  walking,  holding  books, 
hanging  clothes;  are  taken  around  the  schoolroom  and  play- 
ground, taught  all  that  they  may  and  may  not  do,  posture, 
order,  punctuality,  hard  work,  and  play;  duties  to  father, 
mother,  brother,  sister,  home,  the  emperor,  with  proper  hon- 
orifics;  then  lessons  on  the  body,  on  liveliness,  on  manners, 
etiquette  and  deportment,  which  are  minor  morals,  truth  tell- 
ing, the  negative  duty  of  not  quarreling,  lying,  concealing, 
disturbing  others,  ownership,  duties  to  living  things,  not  to 
hurt  other  people's  feelings,  duties  to  teachers,  food,  cleanli- 
ness, regularity,  modes  of  speaking,  keeping  promises,  notic- 
ing faults,  care  of  things,  things  lost,  the  flag,  valor.  In  the 
next  year  comes  instruction  about  reverence  for  ancestors, 
the  duty  of  diligence,  self-help,  learning,  perseverance,  posses- 
sion of  mind,  endurance,  conscience,  boastfulness,  magnanim- 
ity, charity,  kindness  to  servants,  gratitude,  envy,  trust, 
public  good,  love  of  country,  superstition,  benevolence,  mili- 
tary service,  taxation,  office  holding  and  elections,  observance 
of  the  laws,  how  to  be  a  good  Japanese,  duties  to  society,  self- 
respect,  dignity,  dress,  labor,  competition,  wealth,  credit,  dis- 
cipline, independence,  progress,  duties  of  a  subject,  respect  of 
office.  Much  emphasis  is  laid  on  graduation,  memorial,  festal 
days  and  programmes,  and  the  emperor's  birthday  is  cele- 
brated with  special  solemnities,  including  profound  obeisance 
before  his  portrait,  the  reading  of  the  rescript  and  its  explana- 
tion.    Suitable  songs  are  prescribed. 

In  the  middle  school  for  boys,  covering  five  years,  from 
twelve  to  seventeen,  and  the  girls'  high  school,  from  twelve  to 
sixteen,  morals  are  still  based  upon  the  rescript  and  the  various 
syllabi,  texts,  etc.,  with  plenty  of  maxims,  examples  of  good 
deeds,  with  reference  especially  to  ordinary  and  family  matters 
and  daily  conduct.  There  is  little  system.  Such  topics  as  the 
following  are  impressed :  reasons  for  observing  school  rules, 
authorities  of  the  school,  duties  of  the  pupil,  hygiene  of  exer- 
cise, eating,  drinking,  cleanliness,  clothing,  tenacity  of  purpose, 
mutual  help,  friendship,  value  of  time,  order,  politeness,  rela- 
tions of  brother  and  sister,  sacrifice  of  self  for  the  public  good, 
responsibility,  political  and  social  virtues,  duties  of  professions 
and  various  industries,  the  dangers  of  temptation.    Later  and 


MORAL   EDUCATION  213 

still  moFe  systematically  much  the  same  things  are  taught ;  for 
instance,  the  morality  of  health,  intellect,  feeling,  will,  obliga- 
tions to  all  classes  of  people,  to  society,  the  state,  the  emperor, 
international  relations,  progress,  obligations  to  nature,  control 
of  passions,  development  of  common  sense,  toleration,  modes 
of  cultivating  relations  betweeen  ethical  and  natural  laws,  all 
with  frequent  general  reviews.  Examples  of  an  extraordinary 
or  violent  character  are  carefully  avoided,  lest  false  applica- 
tions be  made.  Abstruse  ethics  is  also  tabooed  for  it  is  unde- 
sirable for  children  to  know  that  there  are  differences  of 
theory.  All  that  a  girl  is  taught  is  based  on  the  supposition 
that  she  will  marry  and  be  a  mother.  Manners  are  always  im- 
portant. If,  says  Kikuchi,  we  did  not  believe  that  an  educa- 
tional system  could  mould  the  character  of  a  nation,  everything 
would  have  to  be  remodeled.  We  hold  the  state  can  be  saved 
and  that  our  victories  have  been  won  by  moral  education.  By 
it  we  have  saved  ourselves  and  prevented  the  melting  away  of 
the  great  ethical  principles  that  have  come  down  from  the  past 
and  which  are  one  of  the  solid  foundation  stones  of  morals. 
The  late  war,  the  spirit  of  recent  legislation,  the,  in  some  re- 
spects, ideal  relations  of  the  members  of  a  family,  are  products 
of  moral  education.  How  they  have  conserved  and  awakened 
the  moral  conscience  of  the  nation !  Two  principles  in  general 
are  followed  in  ethical  text-books;  first,  to  select  an  ideal 
character  and  study  his  whole  life,  and  the  other,  to  select  a 
broad  action  of  virtue,  and  cull  illustrations  of  it  from  various 
sources.     Story  and  precept  must  go  together.^ 

France. — Ever  since  the  French  schools  were  secularized 
and  religious  teaching  forbidden  in  them,  fearing  an  increase 
of  immorality  and  realizing  an  ominous  void  created  by  the  re- 
form in  the  curriculum,  the  French,  both  by  commissions  and 
by  private  enterprise,  have  devised  many  courses  of  moral  and 
civil  instruction  for  each  grade.     These  books,  of  which  we 

'  Lafcadio  Hcam  gave  seventy-two  Japanese  boys  as  a  theme  for  a  comjx)sition 
the  topic,  "What  would  you  most  like  in  the  world?"  Nine  of  them  s;iiil,  "To  die 
for  our  sacred  emperor."  Perhaps  self-assertion  and  sflf-<leni  il  at  n)ot  do  go 
together.  (See  als<j  Bernard  Bosanquet,  I^idies  and  (lenllemen.  Internal.  Jour, 
of  Ethics,  1900,  vol.  10,  pp.  317-329.  See  also  his  Psychology  of  the  Mond  Self. 
N.  Y.,  Macmillan,  1004,  132  p.  And  Hilare  Heiloc's  Moral  .\li)halx't,  iHg<).  Si-c 
also  I.  (>.  NitoW,  Bu.shido,  the  Soul  of  Japan.  Philadelphia,  l><-ej|s  &  Biddle, 
1900,  127  p.) 


214  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

have  a  collection,  are  composed  of  maxims,  moral  principles, 
stories  of  heroism,  and  dramatic  acts  of  virtue,  not  only  from 
literature  and  history,  but  from  current  life.  Feeling  that 
conscience  was  not  a  sufficient  guide,  patriotism  and  the  noble 
sentiment  of  honor  were  appealed  to.  and  there  were  prizes, 
medals,  and  public  testimonials  for  children  who  did  noble 
acts.  The  love  and  pride  of  country  and  the  instincts  of  the 
gentleman  and  lady  were  made  into  what  has  been  called  a 
new  secular  religion.  Germany,  on  the  other  hand,  realizing 
the  immense  difficulty  of  finding  religious  courses  in  which 
Jews,  Catholics,  and  Lutherans  could  agree,  a  difficulty  which 
has  several  times  been  attacked  by  the  various  religious  bodies 
in  this  country,  who  have  found  it  even  harder  to  agree  upon  a 
uniform  method  than  have  the  denominational  mission  boards 
of  heathen  lands,  still  adheres  to  the  religious  basis.  Every- 
where the  methods  of  bringing  public  education  under  reli- 
gious influence  are  becoming  harder,  because  it  is  difficult  to 
nucleate  a  consensus.  In  teaching  morality,  there  is  a  broader 
and  better  basis  of  endeavor. 

France  has  made  the  most  heroic  effort  in  the  history  of 
education  to  teach  morals  without  the  aid  of  religion.  Espe- 
cially ever  since  the  epoch-making  law  of  1882,  which  required 
all  elementary  schools  to  teach  morals  and  civics,  and  that 
besides  Sunday,  one  day  a  week  be  set  apart  for  such  religious 
instruction  as  parents  wished  to  provide  (although  all  this 
must  be  done  outside  the  school  buildings),  the  whole  vast 
problem  of  the  moralization  of  the  rising  generation,  independ- 
ently of  all  ecclesiastical  influences  or  religious  sanctions,  has 
been  a  point  of  cardinal  interest  for  not  only  educators  but  for 
not  a  few  statesmen,  philosophers,  and  literary  men,  some  of 
whom  have  made  important  new  contributions.  Few  Silent 
revolutions,  we  are  told,  have  ever  had  greater  significance. 
The  movement  proceeded  "  from  the  very  depths  of  the 
national  consciousness."  In  establishing  the  frontiers  between 
school  and  church,  which  were  very  intricate,  it  was  necessary 
to  avoid  the  accusation  of  "  godless  schools,"  and  so  it  was  or- 
dained that  duties  to  God  as  they  are  revealed  in  conscience 
and  reason  as  well  as  to  the  state,  parents,  self,  etc.,  be  taught. 
Respect  for  the  God  idea  must  be  inculcated,  however,  with 
severe  neutrality  to  the  claims  of  different  confessions,  and 


MORAL   EDUCATION  215 

some  of  the  most  progressive  leaders  (Buisson,  Steeg,  Picaut) 
demanded  that  morals  be  taught  in  a  religious  spirit.  They 
desired,  says  Harrold  Johnson,^  "  to  secularize  religion  and 
sanctify  the  secular."  The  movement  was  thus  at  first  guided 
by  the  above  triumvirate  of  Protestants  of  Huguenot  lineage 
and  sympathy.  They  held  that  "  it  is  possible  for  a  man,  in- 
dependently of  creeds  and  churches,  to  live  a  moral  life  with 
all  the  depth  and  strength  and  force  of  the  religious  senti- 
ment." They  wished  the  consciences  of  the  young  to  be  "  as 
open  to  religious  as  to  secular  thought."  But  these  ideals  could 
not  be  entirely  realized  in  France.'  The  French  mind  is 
severely  logical  and  perhaps  for  that  reason,  in  part  at  least, 
that  country  as  a  whole  has  missed  the  great  pedagogic  ad- 
vantage of  passing  through  the  Protestant  stage.  Instead  of 
a  graded  genetic  processional  (e.  g.,  high  church,  Anglican, 
Lutheran,  Evangelical,  Unitarian,  pantheism,  or  some  other 
attenuated  mature  or  post-mature  stage  of  religion  as  intel- 
lectually interpreted)  the  French  have  provided  themselves  no 
halting  place  between  Rome  and  reason,  no  halfway  station 
on  such  doctrines  as  bibliolatry,  or  the  substitution  of  an  in- 
fallible book  for  an  infallible  church,  or  on  such  doctrines  as 
justification  by  faith  alone;  but  the  alternative  has  been  Ca- 
tholicism or  free  thought,  and  the  leaders  have  had  to  balance 
as  best  they  could  the  dangers  of  priestly  control  on  the  one 
hand  and  of  the  recrudescence  of  anarchistic  tendencies  that 
made  the  French  revolution  on  the  other.  Hence,  various 
societies,  such  as  the  powerful  League  Frangaise  felt  con- 
strained to  dispense  with  God  and  immortality  as  sanctions  to 
duty.  Now  most  teachers  and  most  of  the  scores  of  little 
manuals  rely  for  the  ultimate  appeal  by  which  a  good  life  is 

'  To  whose  admirable  report  on  moral  instruction  and  training  in  France,  in 
Sadler's  Moral  Instruction  and  Training  in  Schools  (London,  Longmans,  Green, 
1908,  vol.  2,  p.  1-50),  I  am  much  indebted  here,  as  well  as  to  the  four  papers  that 
follow  in  that  report  and  a  dozen  of  those  of  the  International  Moral  Education 
Congress  in  iqo8,  edited  by  Gustav  Spiller.  London,  David  Null.  See  also  G. 
Spiller,  RejKjrt  on  Moral  Instruction  and  on  Moral  Training  in  the  Schools  of 
Austria,  Helgium,  the  British  Empire  .  .  .  the  Unitwl  States.  I^)ndon,  Watts, 
H)<x),  362  p.  With  an  admirable  bibliography.  See  also  .Moral  Training  in  the 
Public  Schools,  the  California  prize  es.says.  by  Charles  E.  Rugli  and  others.  Boston, 
Ginn  &  Co.,  1907,  203  p.  See  also  many  articles  in  the  International  Journal  of 
Ethics. 


2i6  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

to  be  justified  on  ideals  of  the  innate  dignity  or  divinity  of 
man,  perhaps  on  Kant's  categorical  imperative  (although  that 
is  now  in  one  camp  interpreted  as  an  external  authority),  on 
social  solidarity,  or  the  philosophy  of  positivism,  or  utilita- 
rianism, or  theories  of  conscience.  Most  of  them  would  invoke 
deity  or  metaphysical  concepts  at  least  only  as  a  last  resort. 
Johnson  well  suggests  that  since  the  French  have  no  Mikado 
whose  edict  could  add  potent  external  to  intensive  inner 
authority  resting  on  the  merits  of  the  promulgation  itself, 
there  is  now  need  of  a  declaration  of  the  duties  of  man  that 
shall  have  the  same  dominance  as  the  "  Declaration  of  Rights 
of  Men  "  now  exercises. 

By  the  law  of  1882  one  hundred  thousand  teachers, 
whether  Catholics  or  Protestants,  strangely  ignorant  of  the 
Bible,  most  of  them  with  little  deep  personal  moral  experience 
or  individual  conviction,  were  suddenly  given  a  kind  of  lay 
priesthood.  For  centuries  the  moral  and  religious  appeal  had 
been  chiefly  external  and  the  national  consciousness  in  these 
matters  was  singularly  crude  and  naive.  The  traditions  and 
very  atmosphere  were  more  or  less  skeptical  about  the  very 
existence  of  fundamental  religious  or  ethical  principles.  Hence, 
it  was  not  surprising  that  the  first  report  on  the  results  of  the 
new  moral  education  in  the  lower  schools,  drawn  up  by  Lich- 
tenberg  in  1889,  showed  no  very  satisfactory  results.  It  is 
thus  unfortunate  that  it  is  from  this  report  that  a  very  general 
impression  has  gone  forth  that  the  scheme  itself  had  been  tried 
and  found  wanting.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  legis- 
lation was  itself  not  complete  until  1886  and  that  several  im- 
portant enactments  needful  to  carry  out  the  plan  to  de-eccle- 
siasticize  the  higher  grades  of  education  came  still  later,  and 
only  in  1902  was  moral  culture  given  in  secondary  schools. 
Indeed,  it  is  a  prodigious  work  for  a  nation  to  seek  to  regener- 
ate itself  through  its  schools.  Moreover,  there  were  vast 
arrears  through  a  long  period  of  decline  to  be  made  up. 
French  children  and  youth  are  still  sufYering  acutely  for  past 
neglect.  There  had  been  a  very  great  increase  in  juvenile 
crime  after  the  Franco-Prussian  War  which  showed  little  sign 
of  being  checked.  As  if  by  a  malign  or  ironical  fate,  in  1880 
France  had  passed  a  law  facilitating  the  production  and  sale 
of  alcohol,  and  in  sixteen  years  its  use  had  increased  threefold 


MORAL    EDUCATION  217 

(as  against  Norway,  which  by  a  vigorous  legislation  has  re- 
duced it  to  about  one  third  its  former  dimensions).  The  use 
of  absinthe  also  increased  about  threefold  in  the  nine  years 
ending  1894.  The  French  Government  is  dependent  upon 
these  sources  for  a  part  of  its  revenue.  Native  wines  are  very 
common  in  the  school  dinners  provided  at  public  cost  and  in 
those  brought  by  the  pupils.  Again,  art,  literature,  and  even 
posters  and  postal  cards  that  are  not  only  suggestive,  but  some- 
times almost  pornographic,  abound  to  a  unique  extent  even  in 
rural  districts.  The  activities  represented  by  Anthony  Com- 
stock  and  his  societies  have  very  little  place  in  France.  There 
the  government  fails  to  cooperate  actively  against  either  alco- 
hol or  obscenity. 

Perhaps  this  is  the  place  to  mention,  too,  that  like  all  great 
movements,  this  has  had  its  fanatics  and  its  crank  literature. 
One  master  has  evolved  a  very  elaborate  course  of  ten  lessons 
on  making  the  toilet  in  the  morning,  ten  on  table  manners,  ten 
on  greetings,  salutations,  etc.,  through  a  long  list.  In  one  tale 
a  cat,  after  destroying  a  nest  of  young  birds,  is  overwhelmed 
with  the  pangs  of  remorse.  There  are  photographs  and  mov- 
ing pictures  of  good  children  giving  sous  to  beggars  and  of 
bad  ones  abusing  them,  etc.,  etc.,  and  essays  in  the  high  schools 
on  suicide.  Children  conjugate  the  verbs  obey,  respect,  etc., 
for  the  moral  effects  of  repeating  these  words  and  phrases. 
One  writer  would  reform  business  by  making  morals  promi- 
nent in  our  commercial  and  industrial  schools.  Another  mem- 
ber urges  rightly  enough,  but  with  almost  unintelligible  ab- 
stractness,  that  pedotechnie  must  rest  on  paidology  and  goes 
on  to  elaborately  reason  out  this  obvious  commonplace.  One 
writer  gives  a  formula  for  educating  to  originality  and  initia- 
tive by  a  new  method  which  involves  repression  of  imitation. 
One  sees  hitherto  undreamed  of  sources  of  moral  edification  in 
arithhietic  if  number  and  measure  are  taught  as  the  absolute 
in  the  Pythagorean  sense,  A  socialist  thinks  parents  do  not 
cooperate  enough  with  the  schools  in  training  to  virtue  because 
they  do  not  want  their  children  to  be  more  moral  than  they 
themselves  are.  nor  that  they  should  l)e  made  too  honest  to 
succeed  in  business  under  present  conditions,  luorywhere  the 
social  sanctions  seem  overemphasized,  j)crha|)s  as  an  instinctive 
safeguard  against  anarchy.     One  writer  avers  that  the  sole 


2i8  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

duty  of  parents  is  to  make  children  and  that  the  state  must 
then  take  them  and  do  the  rest.  Another  says  it  is  attempting 
the  impossible  to  really  hold  any  faith  and  at  the  same  time 
to  be  tolerant  toward  other  creeds,  and  hence  it  is  well  that 
teachers  of  morals  usually  have,  in  fact,  an  animus  against 
religion,  especially  Catholicism.  One  condemns  the  exclusive- 
ness  of  university  professors  and  would  have  them  walk  and 
talk  with  high-school  pupils  weekly.  Another,  in  pleading  for 
individual  instrwction,  declares  the  present  school  system  is 
as  absurd  as  if  patients  in  a  hospital  were  grouped  according 
to  age  and  treated  collectively  in  these  groups. 

Nevertheless,  this  great  movement  is  steadily  developing 
and  the  efficacy  of  the  system  was  never  so  great  nor  its  prom- 
ise so  bright  as  now.  Democracy,  of  course,  always  demands 
universal  suffrage  and  this  necessitates  universal  education, 
and  this  again  makes  it  imperative  that  moral  teaching  per- 
vade the  masses  with  a  spirit  of  reasonableness,  justice,  and 
fraternity.  There  are  those  who  still  urge  that  "the  worship  of 
duty  is  the  worship  of  God  " ;  that  His  supreme  revelation  is 
in  conscience ;  that  to  believe  in  the  good,  the  beautiful,  and  the 
true  utterly  is  to  believe  in  God,  while  others  hold  that  to  instill 
a  horror  of  all  that  is  vile  and  an  ardor  for  all  that  is  noble  is 
a  different,  although  no  less  august,  function  than  that  of  the 
church.  To  draw  out  of  the  depths  of  man's  inner  nature  all 
that  is  sufficient  for  his  moral  development  with  no  adventi- 
tious or  extraneous  support  from  anything  supernatural  or 
authoritative,  has  been  a  more  and  more  inspiring  ideal,  which 
enthusiasts  have  claimed  to  be  the  loftiest  and  most  unique  of 
all  the  efforts  of  the  human  race  since  the  modern  period  of 
culture  began.  Here  we  have  perhaps  the  very  apex  of  mod- 
ernism, so  that  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  early  moral  lesson 
books  were  placed  on  the  Index  and  those  of  Compayre  were 
publicly  burned.  Still,  the  lay  teaching  of  morals  has  become 
more  impartial  and  has  grown  in  public  confidence  and  in 
favor  with  teachers,  who  find  that  it  makes  their  vocation 
more  influential  and  respected  even  in  their  own  eyes.  The 
destinies  of  the  republic  are  felt  to  be  more  closely  bound  up 
with  the  schools,  and  this,  despite  the  outcries  of  the  clericals 
and  the  crudities  and  skepticism  of  the  earlier  years.  Many 
of  the  French  public  teachers  have  not  been  friendly  to  religion 


MORAL    EDUCATION  219 

and  have  found  it  hard  not  to  diffuse  a  skeptical  spirit.  "  The 
deity  that  presides  over  these  moral  lessons,"  says  Johnson, 
"  is  essentially  the  goddess  of  reason."  He  continues  in  sub- 
stance that  they  instruct  the  intellect  rather  than  appeal  to  the 
heart.  Sentiment  and  feeling  are  too  much  ignored.  Pep- 
tonized moral  food  is  crammed.  There  is  overmuch  psitta- 
cism  or  parrot  recitation,  too  much  learning  by  heart,  copying 
of  maxims,  mottoes  hung  and  written  everywhere.  It  is  some- 
times even  "  science  sans  conscience." 

These  tendencies,  which  are  more  or  less  dominant  in  all 
grades  and  topics  of  French  education,  are  just  now  worst  in 
the  moral  training  of  adolescents.  The  pupils  of  the  Lycee 
are  precociously  introduced  to  ethical  theory  and  write  theses 
that  lack  vital  touch  with  life.  The  secondary  teacher  teaches 
remotely  from  the  desk  and  does  not  come  into  close  touch 
with  the  life  of  his  pupils,  who  nevertheless  are  under  inces- 
sant supervision  every  hour  of  the  day  and  worked  with  by 
censors,  rcpctiteurs  and  rcsumcurs.  In  most  Lycees  some 
special  ethical  theory  or  system  which  seems  best  to  the  teacher 
is  stressed.  Again,  after  the  first  two  years,  instruction  in 
morals  ceases,  giving  place  to  preparation  for  the  baccalaure- 
ate, and  so  at  just  the  stage  where  it  is  most  needed  and  should 
be  most  effective  it  is  not  given  at  all.  Compositions  on  moral 
topics  are  common,  although  prizes  for  them,  it  is  said,  are 
sometimes  won  by  the  worst  boys.  But  if  the  Lycees  are  still 
rather  exclusive  and  bourgeois  and,  like  secondary  institutions 
generally  are  most  conservative,  best  protected  from  and  latest 
to  respond  to  new  movements,  the  normal  colleges  at  St.  Cloud 
and  especially  at  Fontenay,  where  Picaut  has  done  his  remark- 
able work  in  the  moral  education  of  those  who  are  to  be 
teachers  of  teachers  in  the  scores  of  training  schools  for  pri- 
mary instructors,  are  thoroughly  democratic,  and  here  moral 
instruction  is  better  given  and  is  more  effective.  Nevertheless, 
some  three  fourths  of  the  children  of  Prance  leave  school 
before  the  legal  age  of  thirteen  and  are  so  withdrawn  from  the 
influence  of  the  moral  training  provided  when  they  are  ap- 
proaching the  most  critical  years  of  life.  Could  moral  educa- 
tion be  continued  to  the  i)eriod  of  army  service,  very  much 
would  Ix!  accomplished.  Probably,  when  all  is  said,  the  efticacy 
of  such  a  system  really  depends  more  on  what  is  done  after, 


220  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

rather  than  what  is  done  before,  twelve  or  thirteen.  But  al- 
though there  are  several  kinds  of  continuation  schools,  courses, 
lectures  for  popular  instruction,  alumnial  associations  which 
provide  teaching  (sometimes  conduct  employment  bureaus), 
the  foundations  of  morality  laid  in  the  elementary  schools  are 
not  sufficiently  built  upon. 

Among  the  best  lines  of  endeavor  is  the  training  of 
soldiers  who  are,  of  course,  young  men.  This  work  is  now 
well  organized,  with  libraries  and  lectures  designed  to  make 
the  two  years  of  compulsory  army  service  a  real  continu- 
ation school  advancing  both  knowledge  and  morality.  The 
morale  of  the  army  is  coming  to  be  felt  to  be  very  dependent 
upon  and  in  need  of  such  kind  of  training.  The  primary 
teachers  now  Ajork  with  splendid  incentives,  and  nearly  all  of 
them  wish  to, rise  and  become  inspectors.  Otherwise  these 
teachers  are  mostly  untraveled  and  are  prone  to  narrowness. 
But  they  know  their  field,  and  are  in  close,  almost  parental, 
relations  to  their  flock.  Such  teachers,  good  and  bad,  have 
often  been  lately  represented  in  French  novels.  Each  such 
school  has  a  kind  of  solidarity  and  every  child  is  eager  for  the 
diploma  or  leaving  certificate,  which  often  hangs  in  the  poorest 
homes.  There  is  a  weekly  report  for  the  parents  to  sign  and 
comment  on  if  they  will,  and  this  gives  the  teacher  a  better 
hold  on  the  pupil.  Graphic  curves  are  often  kept,  showing  at 
a  glance  the  progress  of  each  pupil  for  each  month  in  his  whole 
career.  Corporal  punishment  is  usually  forbidden,  cleanliness 
is  made  a  prominent  virtue.  The  poor  are  helped  to  books, 
clothes,  and  even  toys.  There  is  a  comprehensive  school-in- 
surance system,  to  which  now  nearly  seven  hundred  thousand 
children  belong ;  two  sous  a  week  are  brought  and  this  gives  a 
sense  of  mutualism.  In  the  flood  of  usually  rather  dull  text- 
books on  moral  and  civic  instruction,  J,  Payot's  "  La  Morale  a 
r  Ecole,"  1905,  stands  out  as  the  best;  all  is  based  on  social 
solidarity.  It  is  called  "  the  most  important  moral  discovery 
of  the  nineteenth  century."  It  is  genetic  and  shows  the  evolu- 
tionary history  of  man  from  savagery,  and  this  gives  a  sense 
of  solidarity  with  the  past.  Here,  too,  may  be  mentioned  as 
typical,  E.  Petit's  "  Jean  Lavenir,"  a  boy's  autobiography 
showing  what  moral  instruction  is  at  present.  There  is  now 
great  activity  in  the  production  of  moral  courses  and  a  tend- 


MORAL   EDUCATION  221 

ency  away  from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete  with  perhaps 
excessive  detail. 

But  despite  all  carping  and  defects,  France  to-day  presents 
the  magnificent  spectacle  of  a  great  nation  attempting  to  re- 
generate itself  morally,  as  Germany  sought  to  do,  intellectually 
and  nationally,  after  the  Battle  of  Jena  a  century  ago.  through 
the  schools.  This  movement  is  giving  to  the  school,  which  had 
none  before  and  did  not  feel  the  lack  of  it,  a  genuine  soul. 
There  is  a  fresh  educational  consciousness  which  is  becoming 
an  ever  larger  factor  in  realizing  the  national  ideals.  To  a 
psychologist  of  religion  the  whole  movement  is  profoundly 
religious  and  its  anti-clerical  cast  makes  it  all  the  more 
earnest.  Altogether  it  is  a  new  creation  which  will  be 
studied  with  intense  interest.  It  seems  almost  as  if  the 
Divine  were  making  a  new  revelation  of  Himself  to-day 
in  this  movement.  It  implies  the  sublimest  faith  in  human 
nature  as  capable  of  saving  a  nation,  even  when  some  of 
its  own  patriots  were  ready  to  weep  over  it  as  Christ  wept 
over  Jerusalem. 

And  yet,  despite  all  this  magnificent  adult  endeavor,  a  con- 
noisseur of  child  nature  feels  that  its  needs  are  not  yet  met  and 
that  its  heart  is  still  left  hungry.  The  child  cannot  lead  a 
moral  life  with  all  the  fervor  and  strength  of  the  religious 
sentiment  without  religion.  There  are  solemn  chords  in  the 
soul  not  struck  by  set  lessons  in  morals,  by  new  readers  illus- 
trating the  latest  and  best  in  current  literature  and  painting, 
or  by  ideals  of  social  collectivity  and  solidarity.  There  is  little 
to  appeal  to  the  imagination.  Fairy  tales  are  generally 
severely  tabooed.  "  Lights  in  the  heaven  of  the  soul  have  been 
put  out."  "  There  is  no  vent  or  escape  into  the  ideal."  All 
is  too  obvious  or  too  often  tainted  with  commonplace.  If  the 
good  old  morality  of  our  fathers  tends  to  "  ankylose  conscious- 
ness," the  rationalistic  flavor  of  the  eighteenth  century  that 
clings  to  this  teaching  makes  middle-school  boys  morally  pre- 
cocious. Conscience  matures  late  and  slowly  and  tlie  method 
and  spirit  of  schools  are  very  hard  to  change,  so  that  it  must 
take  generations  rather  than  decades  to  make  the  culture  of 
conscience  as  central  as  that  of  memory  now  is.  But  the 
youthful  soul  has  a  common  treasure  and  spiritual  patrimony 
in  the  form  of  latent  race  exi)erience  that  makes  it  cry  out  for 


222  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

breadth  of  life.  For  it  indeed,  "  science  does  not  exhaust  the 
real  nor  conscience  the  ideal."  Religion  at  its  very  lowest  is 
the  category  of  the  ideal.  It  is  the  most  intensely  humanistic 
of  all  studies.  Wise  men,  even  those  who  reject  it  for  them- 
selves, urge  with  great  earnestness  that  it  develops  the  youth- 
ful imagination  as  nothing  else  ever  can  begin  to  do.  It  has 
a  unique  sphere  in  the  soul  and  must  be  taught  by  a  pedagogy 
of  its  own.  It  should  bring  in  a  most  stimulating  and  heroic 
atmosphere.  The  child's  individualistic  experience  is  too  nar- 
row to  afford  of  itself  sufficient  basis  for  moral  education,  al- 
though it  must  be  both  utilized  and  widened  to  the  uttermost. 
Morals  must  be  enforced  by  some  sense  of  authority.  It  is 
not  enough  to  merely  reason  with  callow  striplings,  although 
French  parents  and  teachers  are  more  prone  to  rely  chiefly  on 
this.  Moral  science  may  be  largely,  but  it  cannot  be  wholly, 
experimental,  at  least  for  youth ;  nor  is  the  Kantian  imperative 
or  utilitarianism  or  any  other  theory  adequate,  and  the  history 
of  moral  systems  brings  perplexity  and  inclines  to  casuistry. 
If  religion  be  yielding  to  the  higher,  more  spiritual  impulsions 
inherited  from  the  past  which  prompt  man  to  ever  higher 
evolution,  which  perpetually  inspire  the  inner  counsels  of  per- 
fection and  of  superior  human  vocation,  the  transcendental 
motivation  so  strong  in  adolescence  must  be  utilized  and  a 
sense  of  corporate  unity  with  family,  school,  city,  state,  man- 
kind and  the  great  cosmos,  strengthen  each  other,  while  at  the 
same  time  the  duty  of  complete  self-realization,  of  developing 
individuality  to  its  uttermost  must  be  impressed,  and  the  con- 
sequent sense  of  dignity  and  self-respect — both  these  tenden- 
cies, the  social  and  the  individual — must  be  stimulated  and 
given  due  temper  by  a  sense  of  limitation  and  dependence 
which  is  religious  in  its  very  core — this  is  the  ideal.  To  this 
end,  the  schoolboy  or  girl  must  not  only  get  into  touch  with, 
and  if  possible  visit  every  local  charity,  become  acquainted 
with  every  reform  and  welfare  endeavor  and  organization  in 
his  ow'n  environment,  but  must  also  profit  by  every  source  of 
personal  moral  and  religious  enthusiasm  to  which  he  is  capable 
of  responding. 

Views  of  Other  Writers. — For  years  I  have  read  and  kept 
tab  by  notes,  now  growing  very  bulky,  on  many  score  of 
books  and  articles  on  moral  education,  the  rereading  of  which 


MORAL   EDUCATION  223 

now  brings  a  confusion  that  will  not  be  resolved  because  of  the 
vast  variety  of  standpoints  and  the  great  diversity  of  emphasis 
laid  upon  every  aspect  of  this  vast  problem. 

F.  A.  Manny  cannot  agree  with  Professor  Palmer's  opposition  to 
definite  moral  instruction  when  he  says  that  morality  does  not  take 
its  rise  in  knowledge.  Moral  education  should  begin,  Palmer  says, 
when  one  duty  conflicts  with  another,  and  only  so  much  teaching  is 
necessary  as  will  give  the  child  respect  for  institutions  and  adjust- 
ment. Adler  lays  great  stress  on  protected  environment,  the  truth 
asserted  by  a  superior  mind  that  has  traveled  the  same  ground, 
dogmatic  assertion  preceding  verification.  He  would  have  it  include 
ability  to  change  with  the  environment,  and  to  train  reformers. 
Griggs  thinks  the  object  of  moral  training  is  to  substitute  inte- 
grating apportioning  of  desire  or  the  extension  of  sympathy  and 
personality  over  widening  areas  of  life.  Dewey  would  develop  mem- 
bership of  the  individual  in  a  larger  whole,  the  person  having  not 
only  power  to  change  but  to  shape  things.  Griggs  gives  over  five 
hundred  titles  on  this  subject.  Manny  praises  studies  of  govern- 
ment. Colin  Scott  praises  group  work.  B.  Cronson  (Pupil  Self- 
Government,  N.  Y.,  Macmillan,  1907,  107  p.)  finds  the  true  value  of 
the  child  not  in  his  childhood  but  in  his  latent  manhood.  Gulick 
pleads  for  efficiency.  Larned  illustrates  the  great  value  of  simplicity 
and  directness,  with  citations  from  men  and  works.  Cramer  wants 
alternative  courses  of  action  kept  open  while  adaptations  are  being 
made.  This  makes  moral  thinkers,  and  correlates  responsibility  with 
freedom.  He  also  discusses  schoolboy  honor  and  the  fraternity  sys- 
tem. A  prize  was  given  to  a  Philadelphia  clergyman  who  urges  that 
right  means  according  to  the  will  of  God,  etc. 

B.  E.  Brereton  well  expresses  the  French  attitude  in  urging  that 
the  moment  children  begin  to  reflect,  as  they  do  at  an  early  age, 
they  want  to  know  the  reasons  of  conduct.  Usually  now,  nurses 
and  parents  stifle  free  inquiry  by  authority  and  thus  stunt  the  legiti- 
mate element  of  curiosity.  The  schools  dampen  these  heart  search- 
ings  until  the  boy  is  in  great  danger  of  losing  his  healthy  sense  of 
wonder.  Normally,  he  asks  what  life  means,  and  what  is  its  pur- 
pose that  he  must  have  standards,  and  that  there  may  be  some- 
thing to  live  for.  Thus,  there  must  be  thinking  of  a  kind.  \Vc  have 
not  hitherto  given  children  the  credit  for  being  able  to  do  that 
which  they  can  and  long  to  do.  Descartes  thought  that  ideas  be- 
come irresistible  in  projwrtion  to  their  clearness.  The  Revolution, 
too,  has  helped  to  give  France  a  problem  which  she  must  work  out 
for  herself,  and  neither  she  nor  England  can  set  fashions  for  the 
other.  Again,  we  should  not  speak  of  the  moral  question,  but  of 
a  series  of  moral  questions.  Paul  Gaultier  holds  that  without  re- 
ligion we  could  never  have  a  veritable  altruism;  and  yet,  as  M.  A. 
Croisset  declares  in   his  "  La   Crise  Morale,"  there  are  not  symp- 


224  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

toms  or  even  a  possibility  of  a  return  of  the  old  traditional  religion. 
But  as  Sorel  says,  the  two  equations,  science  and  religion,  are  utterly 
irreducible,  and  those  who  read  one  out  of  the  other  are  illogical. 
We  must  extract  now  the  spirit  of  Christianity  and  disregard  the 
latter.  Science  and  religion  must  be  given  each  its  own  independent 
place.  Both  must  be  cultivated  and  due  balance  maintained  between 
them.  Gaultier  does  not  make  morals  a  positive,  autonomous  and 
independent  science  quite  apart  from  metaphysics  and  religion,  but 
on  the  contrary,  only  insists  that  morality  must  be  natural  before 
it  is  made  supernatural.  Tufts  thinks  there  should  be  general  cor- 
relation between  school  training  and  that  by  which  society  is  ad- 
vanced. In  early  years  indirect  agencies  may  be  relied  upon.  But 
the  subject  mattter  is  not  properly  organized,  especially  in  civics, 
history,  and  literature.  The  school  lays  too  much  stress  on  the  in- 
tellect. De  Garmo  urges  that  moral  ideas  must  be  transformed  into 
ideals.  Man  must  be  taught  to  supplement  the  altruism  of  service 
by  the  altruism  of  sight.  The  mother  must  be  taught  to  fight  dirt 
and  disease  for  her  children.  W.  S.  Hall  thinks  that  socially  school 
hygiene  can  be  made  very  much  of  in  this  regard.  Making  a  living 
has  moral  possibilities  that  are  not  utilized  to  their  full  extent  at 
present.  Cooperative  effort  seems  to  be  more  appreciated  just  now 
than  perfecting  oneself,  or  even  the  sacrifice  of  altruism,  and 
some  stress  is  laid  upon  rapidity  and  perfection  of  workmanship. 
H.  Johnson  believes  that  mere  morality  would  be  cold,  intellectual, 
and  would  not  stir  the  instincts  of  wonder  and  reverence.  Moral 
education  ought  to  include  among  its  tasks  that  of  cultivating  a 
higher  religious  attitude.  A  stupid  man  cannot  be  really  virtuous, 
and  it  is  rather  doubtful  whether  a  purely  intellectual  being  could 
be  so.  It  is  not  merely  fulfilling  our  functions  as  a  member  of  a 
social  whole;  it  includes  self-realization,  some  standards  of  rev- 
erence, ideas  of  comparative  values.  Foerster  thinks  that  ethical 
education  should  make  men  independent  of  the  impulsions  and  ex- 
citations of  the  moment.  Voyst  said  not  only  the  school  should  teach 
moral  practice,  but  the  parents  should  know  the  faults  of  their  chil- 
dren better  and  influence  them  more  in  their  habits,  food,  dress,  etc. 
Avebury  thought  moral  education  in  England  was  uninteresting, 
narrow,  appealed  too  much  to  the  memory,  and  had  little  influence 
on  character;  said  teaching  should  be  indirect.  Direct  teaching 
must  never  be  before  ten,  said  Hoffmann,  but  should  be  very  con- 
crete, and  the  illustrations  taken  from  the  life  of  the  child.  Cer- 
tain branches  of  instruction  have  more  moral  value  than  others,  and 
Sedgwick  emphasizes  literature;  Schneller,  history;  Rowe,  manual 
training;  Weysse,  study  of  nature;  Ravenhill,  science;  Lombroso 
advocated  hypnotic  suggestion  in  some  cases,  but  the  London  Con- 
gress thought  the  time  had  not  yet  come  for  this.  The  sentiment 
was  rather  against  a  comprehensive  system  of  rewards  and  punish- 
ments, and  some  condemn  them  all. 

Clifford  W.  Barnes  deprecates  the  principle  that  the  school  is  to 


MORAL   EDUCATION  225 

make  every  pupil  an  effective  economic  unit  and  insists  that  the 
goal  is  the  development  of  character  and  right  conduct.  It  is  no 
longer  enough  to  teach  the  three  R's,  and  the  fact  that  we  receive 
every  year  more  than  a  million  foreigners,  many  of  them  of  the 
poorest  and  least  educated  class,  magnifies  the  problem  of  moral 
education.  It  is  not  enough  to  teach  obedience,  punctuality,  good 
manners,  and  school  rules,  nor  to  give  intellectual  instruction  in 
rights  and  duties.  In  the  case  of  exceptionally  bad  children  the 
teacher  may  appeal  to  the  class  to  know  if  they  have  done  all  they 
can  to  help  him.  This  may  even  come  in  lieu  or  as  a  prelude  of 
expulsion,  or  pupils  may  be  made  to  feel  responsible  for  teaching 
laggards  who  are  liable  to  be  dropped.  We  are  now  studying  art, 
domestic  science,  manual  training,  hygiene,  and  every  school  branch, 
to  see  what  moral  value  can  be  got  out  of  it.  In  Europe  both 
moral  and  religious  instruction  are  most  fearlessly  taught.  In  Great 
Britain  the  first  school  hour  is  devoted  to  religious  lessons,  and 
many  report  the  subject  the  most  interesting  one  of  the  curriculum. 
This  is  a  field  where  we  must  simply  address  ourselves  courageously 
to  problems  that  are  so  stupendous  as  to  seem  almost  impossible.  The 
new  international  organization  to  investigate  and  promote  this  work 
is  the  most  hopeful  thing  in  the  field  at  present. 

Alice  H.  Putnam  thinks  that  the  child  can  be  disposed  to  much 
that  is  good  by  beginning  very  early  to  repress  the  individual  in 
the  interests  of  the  social  whole.  The  child  is  never  out  of  the 
domain  of  morals  and  ethics.  There  must  be  close  union  between 
hearing,  knowing,  and  doing,  even  in  the  interests  of  attention. 
Children  must  not  be  left  so  free  to  work  out  their  own  ideas  that 
they  cannot  be  subordinated.  Only  toward  adolescence  should  habit 
be  cultivated  in  James's  sense  of  moral  gymnastics,  save  on  the 
daily  stents  of  cleanliness,  order,  and  other  little  duties.  Reverence 
and  respect  is  a  prime  basis  of  virtue,  and  the  best  guarantee  of 
growth.     Example  never  fails. 

C.  L.  Payton  says  that  sensibility  is  a  word  that  should  not  lose 
caste.  There  must  be  greater  freedom  and  sympathy  between  a  teacher 
and  pupil,  which  knowledge  of  the  latter  by  the  former  greatly  aids. 
The  child's  feelings  are  very  changeable,  often  irrational,  and  their 
desires  quickly  cease,  for  they  have  little  tenacity,  and  new  inter- 
ests always  expel  old  ones.  Monotony  is  so  painful  that  even  slight 
changes  are  often  welcome.  One  of  the  strongest  instincts  of  chil- 
dren is  for  activity.  Hence  comes  much  of  their  mischicvousncss, 
for  they  are  always  itching  and  bursting  into  life.  Ao(|uisitiveness, 
too,  is  strongly  marked.  The  comparative  and  enuilative  tendency 
needs  legitimate  scope.  Sociability  is  almost  a  passion.  One  of  the 
keenest  and  most  difficult  feelings  to  use  is  the  love  of  praise. 
Some  are  very  easily  discouraged;  others  are  spoiled  by  indiscrim- 
inate commendation.  The  idolatry  of  mothers  is  always  dangerous. 
Spencer  says,  "  The  test  of  being  educated  is :  Can  you  do  what 
you  ought  when  you  ought,  and  whether  you  want  to  do  it  or  not?  " 
16 


226  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

E.  B.  Bryan  says  in  substance  that  many  things  immoral  for 
adults  have  no  moral  significance  in  the  child,  that  such  standards 
as  he  develops  come  to  him  more  by  unconscious  imitation  and  sug- 
gestion than  by  precept.  It  is  not  always  theft  for  a  child  to  appro- 
priate v^^hat  does  not  belong  to  him;  neither  is  he  a  liar  if  he  yields 
sometimes  to  his  imagination,  a  trickster  because  he  connives  in 
many  ways  to  attain  his  end,  or  immodest  because  indicating  no 
shame.  The  time  will  come  when  all  these  things  will  have  moral 
significance,  and  the  pedagogic  question  is  what  can  be  done  at 
the  right  time,  without  making  the  child  hyperconscious  of  being 
either  very  good  or  very  bad.  Nowhere  so  much  as  in  morals  and 
in  conduct  do  suggestion  and  imitation  play  such  a  role.  Thus, 
chiefly,  he  learns  language  and  no  example  of  our  conduct  and  truth- 
fulness is  lost  upon  him. 

H.  M.  Thompson  says  that  perhaps  there  is  no  point  on  which 
there  is  more  agreement  than  that  children,  when  they  leave  school, 
should  be  equipped  to  meet  the  moral  requirements  of  life,  and  that 
instruction  is  not  enough,  and  also  that  denominational  religions 
and  even  theological  conceptions  are  mainly  ineffective  and  some- 
times defeat  the  ends  of  virtue.  Payot,  a  French  inspector,  in 
1902  directed  the  removal  from  the  walls  of  the  schools  of  all  pic- 
tures representing  scenes  of  violence  and  ferocity.  It  is  not  enough 
to  inculcate  virtue  as  occasions  arise,  but  something  more  systematic 
is  needed.  Codes  of  honor  may  be  made  very  eflfective.  The  author 
outlines,  although  it  must  be  admitted  in  a  very  general  way,  sug- 
gestions for  three  stages  of  moral  instruction.  He  commends  Char- 
lotte Yonge's  "  Book  of  Golden  Deeds  "  for  the  first,  although  he 
recommends  that  each  teacher  compile  his  own  Book  of  Golden 
Deeds.  He  would  have  special  attention  given  to  teaching  sympa- 
thy, mutual  dependence,  self-respect,  respect  for  others,  kindness  to 
animals,  and  suggests  ^Esop  and  such  stories  as  the  "  Bundle  of 
Sticks,"  "  Sir  Philip  Sidney,"  etc.  He  also  suggests  stories  of  the 
type  of  "  Grace  Darling  "  and  "  Father  Damien."  In  the  third  stage 
instruction  must  be  more  complex.  Here  he  protests  most  emphat- 
ically against  basing  ethics  upon  Scripture.  The  propensity  of  the 
theologists  has  always  been  to  place  the  most  incomprehensible  doc- 
trines in  the  forefront.  The  child  is  taught  to  submit  himself  to 
spiritual  gods.  F.  J.  Gould's  work  in  persuading  his  countrymen 
to  adopt  more  nontheological  instruction  in  the  schools  is  highly 
praised.  The  difficulties  in  this  field  in  general  are  very  great,  but 
it  is  cowardice  to  say  that  because  morality  is  of  such  great  impor- 
tance it  cannot  be  taught.     We  must  grapple  with  it  in  dead  earnest. 

Buisson  says  history  shows  in  large  type  what  we  must  decipher 
in  very  delicate  lines  in  the  psychology  of  the  individual,  though 
the  will  cannot  be  educated  by  itself  according  to  Kant's  "  I  ought, 
therefore  I  can,"  and  it  is  also  difficult  to  eliminate  all  the  heterono- 
mous  elements  from  Schopenhauer's  "  will  to  live."  Pure  will  needs 
the  aid  of  all  kinds  of  auxiliaries,  especially  in  the  young.     Perhaps 


MORAL   EDUCATION  227 

will  begins  in  the  lower  forms  of  life  in  irritability.  The  feeling 
of  effort  vanishes  when  habits  are  acquired  and  we  are  prone  to 
grow  listless  and  to  abandon  struggle.  Strong  wills  are  perhaps 
legitimate  offspring  of  great  clearness  of  understanding.  Will  both 
impels  and  vetoes  or  inhibits,  so  that  the  Stoic  precepts,  sustine  and 
abstine,  comprise  its  work.  First  comes  spontaneous  activity  or  the 
instinctive  movements ;  next,  conscious  reflection ;  and  then  habitual 
activity,  which  is  a  synthesis  of  the  two.  How  much  effort  are 
we  capable  of  is  a  test  question.  Duty  increases  as  we  advance 
and  does  not  diminish.  We  can  never  close  accounts  with  con- 
science. The  will  ought  to  serve  all  noble  causes.  The  will  has 
many  forms,  directions,  and  stages.  Self-control  is  one  of  the  high- 
est. It  involves  mastery,  coordination,  and  subordination.  Some  say 
that  when  halting  between  two  courses  we  must  always  choose  the 
hardest.  Reason,  duty,  truth,  justice,  are  four  expressions  of  will. 
We  must  accept  the  mighty  burden  of  liberty  or  be  eternal  minors. 

G.  W.  A.  Luckey  says  the  United  States  spend  nearly  two  hun- 
dred million  dollars  annually  upon  public  schools.  Does  it  make  the 
young  better?  It  would  seem  that  character  is  less  fixed,  but  our 
age  and  ideals  have  changed.  Instead  of  allegiance  to  higher  pow- 
ers, free  men  owe  success  or  failure  to  their  own  acts.  Character 
means  the  harmonious  development  of  all  the  powers.  Will  evolves 
from  involuntary  aimless  movements,  then  is  guided  by  perceptions, 
until  there  is  a  desire  to  reproduce  pleasurable  and  avoid  painful 
states.  Voluntary  always  depend  upon  former  involuntary  move- 
ments. Hence,  surrounding  conditions  must  be  right.  Health,  in- 
tellect, sensibility,  sympathy,  are  all  needed.  Life  is  transition. 
Other  types  will  be  necessary. 

G.  Spiller,  in  discussing  the  Moral  Education  Congress,  con- 
trasts the  general  conditions  of  life  a  hundred  years  ago,  when  most 
people  lived  in  villages  and  were  interested  in  local  and  rural  affairs, 
with  the  present,  when  life  is  on  an  international  piano.  Add  to 
this  the  progress  of  science,  the  new  and  larger  ideas  of  religion 
which  have  made  the  old  orthodoxy  obsolete,  the  new  human  soli- 
darity, change  of  modes  of  treating  crime,  etc.,  and  we  realize  that 
not  only  the  physical  and  intellectual,  but  also  the  moral  situation 
has  undergone  a  radical  transformation.  Responsibility  for  the 
education  of  children  has  been  almost  entirely  taken  over  by  the 
nation.  Even  the  church  is  more  or  less  superseded  in  this  field. 
Thus,  in  a  sense,  there  are  two  codes  of  ethics,  one  supplied  by  the 
nation  and  the  other  by  the  churches.  More  and  more  it  is  under- 
stood that  intellectual  education  is  no  substitute  or  even  guarantee 
for  moral  training,  and  that  the  state  must  control  the  latter  as  well 
as  the  former.  The  ethical  concepts  and  motives  that  rule  the 
world  must  rule  the  school  in  order  to  fit  men  and  women  to  live 
in  the  large  present  and  the  yet  larger  future.  Thus.  "  every  lesson 
in  the  curriculum  should  be  primarily  an  ethical  lesson."  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  church  teaching  is  to  vanish  from  the  schools  of 


228  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

the  world,  and  that  practical  training  in  conduct  of  some  kind  is 
to  take  its  place.  Deny  it  though  some  do,  there  is  some  difference 
between  theological  and  civic  or  social  ethics. 

Sir  E.  Buske  thinks  there  is  great  progress  being  made  in  this 
field  at  present.  He  thinks  the  power  of  moral  judgment  needs  cul- 
tivating, and  its  scale  must  be  extended  upward  indefinitely.  Higher 
and  higher  acts  and  motives  must  be  known.  And  tolerance  must 
be  taught  for  those  mostly  on  a  low  moral  plane.  T.  S.  Morton 
points  out  the  dangers  of  too  much  authority  and  too  dominant  per- 
sonalities, even  though  they  be  wholesome.  A  feeble,  quiet  man 
may  teach  and  guide  a  class  by  his  intellect,  and  he  may  do  it  with- 
out appeal  to  higher  authority.  Perhaps  this  would  best  illustrate 
the  French  system,  which  is  not  made  for  export.  J.  Baumann  has 
surveyed  the  general  history  of  the  development  of  the  will,  its 
plasticity,  its  laws,  its  relations  to  morals  and  character,  the  patho- 
logical side  of  the  subject,  and  makes  all  center  here.  J.  S.  Mc- 
Kenzie  says  that  we  should  produce  the  good  citizen  even  before 
the  good  man,  for  the  latter  is  involved  in  the  former.  There  is 
an  overlapping  margin  in  diverging  moral  ideas,  which  we  should 
attend  to,  for  it  often  makes  trouble,  but  our  chief  subject  should 
bring  out  underlying  unity.  Although  there  are  difficulties,  they  are 
inherently  different  from  those  in  other  educational  topics,  and  we 
should  hail  these  very  difficulties  with  delight.  Teachers  do  need 
special  training  unquestionably,  but  who  will  tell  how  to  give  them 
just  this  training?  A  recent  writer  calls  attention  to  the  frequency 
of  drawings  of  the  lowest  and  most  savage  and  most  inartistic  style 
that  are  essentially  obscene,  to  which  children  are  now  exposed,  and 
would  have  energetic  measures  taken  to  prevent  and  to  remove  them. 
He  even  holds  that  the  liberty  of  art  in  this  respect  should  be  re- 
stricted in  the  interests  of  childhood.  He  deplores  the  cynicism  that 
sometimes  appears  even  in  decorations. 

Claraz,  deploring  that  we  only  learn  how  to  live  when  life  is 
almost  past,  urges  that  the  study  of  the  earlier  life  of  criminals 
shows  that  in  the  great  number  of  cases  their  moral  perversion 
originated  in  the  very  earliest  stages  of  adolescence.  Society  owes 
education  to  children  as  its  most  sacred  obligation,  just  as  it  owes 
justice  to  adults.  We  should  wake  up  about  this  obligation  to  aban- 
doned children,  and  we  need  a  very  little  moral  regeneration  merely 
as  a  matter  of  public  safety.  Punishment  ought  to  excite  regret, 
but  this  cannot  be  awakened  in  those  who  have  no  sense  of  right 
and  wrong  and  of  all  social  laws.  One  fifth  of  all  court  cases  are 
orphans,  and  half  are  without  father  and  about  a  quarter  without 
a  mother.  Precocious  perversity  is  very  common,  and  prostitution 
in  some  form  almost  universal  in  this  class.  A.  Meiklejohn  says 
that  the  college  is  not  fitted  to  teach  the  forms  of  living  or  practice 
the  art  of  doing  so,  but  to  broaden  and  deepen  interest  into  love,  to 
bind  up  the  riches  of  human  experience  and  knowledge.  It  is  not 
merely  to  prepare  specifically  to  succeed  in  life,  nor  solely  for  effi- 


MORAL   EDUCATION  229 

ciency,  nor  social  service,  valuable  as  these  ends  are.  It  should  (a) 
teach  the  young  how  to  use  their  leisure  or  play;  (6)  develop  friend- 
ship; (c)  give  taste  for  work.  How  few  are  acquiring  in  college 
interest  in  the  things  that  are  most  worth  while!  The  art  of  life 
is  a  great  art.  Findlay,  Paton,  GoUing,  K.  Koch,  R.  Deutsch,  Kalb, 
Siebert,  Trandorf,  Wiget,  Ronsch,  Compayre,  Harris,  and  indeed, 
nearly  all  the  best  writers  upon  educational  subjects,  have  grappled 
with  some  phase  of  this  mighty  theme  and  shed  light  upon  some 
part  of  it  or  contributed  something  to  show  its  wider  ranges  and 
its  all-transcending  importance. 

There  is  surely  a  moral  revival  that  is  felt  not  only  in  colleges 
and  universities,  but  is  connected  with  the  Hague  movement,  the 
many  altruistic  organizations  for  defectives,  dependents,  delinquents, 
that  underlies  Hampton,  Tuskegee,  the  George  Junior  Republic,  the 
Juvenile  Court,  and  all  these  efforts  endeavoring  to  save  society 
by  impregnating  it  with  higher  ideals  of  moral  life.  The  men  in 
whom  the  country  is  deeply  interested  are  ethical  teachers,  like 
Hughes  and  Roosevelt.  The  enthusiasm  they  inspire  is  largely 
moral,  and  there  is  great  indication  that  this  moral  revival  will  con- 
tinue till  the  great  work  has  been  completed.  Pfordten  thinks  the 
pedagogue's  basal  precept  should  be  to  remain  true  to  the  deeper 
currents  which  have  already  set  in  and  which  dominate  conscious- 
ness. This  is  being  true  to  one's  self,  which  takes  precedence  over 
reproducing  the  external  world.  If  there  are  fundamental  defects  of 
character,  people  must  conform  to  ideals  of  virtue  even  if  they  have 
to  act  or  play  a  part  at  first,  for  that  is  what  consciousness  is  for. 
Friedrich  gives  an  interesting  series  of  articles  on  the  development 
of  the  moral  and  ethical  judgment  in  the  drama  which  is  full  of 
interesting  pedagogic  suggestions. 

Challamel  has  written  a  volume  of  practical  morality  and  current 
reading,  and  is  one  of  the  best  representatives  of  the  course  in 
France,  the  twentieth  anniversary  of  which  has  just  been  celebrated. 
The  first  general  topic  is  the  child  in  the  family.  The  special  sec- 
tions are,  the  family  in  ancient  times  and  now,  filial  love,  recogni- 
tion, the  duty  of  respect,  obedience,  duties  to  grandparents,  brothers 
and  sisters,  spirit  of  family  unity,  duty  of  masters  and  servants. 
Each  topic  is  explained  and  has  a  recitation,  often  poetic,  with  a 
few  maxims,  extracts,  on  which  there  are  questions  and  matter  to 
be  remembered.  The  second  part,  on  the  child  in  the  school,  sets 
forth  the  need  of  learning  and  the  dangers  of  ignorance,  diligence, 
exactness,  duties  to  teachers,  comrades,  necessity  of  good  example, 
emulation,  pride,  envy,  jealousy,  duties  on  leaving  the  school.  Under 
country,  there  are  lessons  on  society  and  its  benefits,  the  greatness 
of  France  and  national  pride,  love  and  devotion  to  the  country, 
respect  and  obedience  to  its  laws,  duty  of  paying  taxes,  rendering 
military  service,  loyalty  to  the  flag,  duty  of  voting.  Individual 
duties  are  to  the  body  as  the  instrument  of  the  soul,  hygiene,  exer- 
cise, dress,  temperance,  the  nature  of  the  soul  and  the  intellect,  lying 


23©  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

and  truthfulness,  will  power  and  courage,  patience,  resignation,  per- 
severance, originality,  anger,  pride,  vanity,  work,  economy,  avarice, 
order,  prodigality,  duties  to  animals.  Under  social  duties  come 
justice,  charity,  duty  to  our  neighbors,  war,  respect  for  the  lib- 
erty of  others  and  their  possessions,  respect  for  the  honor  of  others, 
calumny,  mendacity,  gossip,  respect  for  the  opinions  of  others  and 
tolerance  also  for  their  rights.  Here,  too,  come  charity,  benevolence, 
good  will,  generosity,  clemency,  devotion,  fraternity,  solidarity, 
amity;  and  lastly  come  religious  duties,  the  belief  in  God's  exist- 
ence, eternity,  religious  culture  in  the  form  of  hymns,  etc.  To  love 
good  is  to  love  God,  the  honest  man,  examination  of  conscience. 
Supplementary  lessons  are  upon  politeness,  conventionality,  conver- 
sation, ceremonies,  marriage,  subscription,  travel,  etc. 

F.  J.  Gould  has  a  series  of  three  volumes  of  about  two  hundred 
pages  each.  The  first  is  devoted  to  self-control  and  truthfulness, 
treating  under  the  first  head  temperance,  talking,  patience,  perse- 
verance, excelsior,  courage,  self-reliance,  prudence,  order,  and  mod- 
esty; under  the  second  head,  truth  in  act  and  speech,  keeping  prom- 
ises, careful  eyes,  ears,  and  tongues,  knowledge,  truth  seeking, 
mastery,  judgment,  differences  of  opinion,  proofs  and  tests,  being 
and  not  seeming,  and  the  reward.  The  second  volume  deals  with 
kindness,  work,  and  duty.  Under  the  first  head  there  are  sections 
on  the  mother,  the  father,  sisters,  brothers,  other  people,  kindness, 
clever  people,  the  deaf,  dumb,  and  blind,  hospitals,  lighthouses,  fire 
brigades,  animals;  and  under  work  and  duty  are  chapters  entitled, 
"  Can,"^  "  Work,"  "  Honor,"  "  Duty,"  "  Ability,"  "  Social  Service," 
"  A  Day  in  a  Quarry."  The  third  volume  is  devoted  to  the  family, 
with  chapters  each  on  the  Roman,  Arab,  Chinese,  Spanish,  Burmese, 
African  family,  the  people  of  many  other  lands,  the  middle  ages, 
fire,  primitive  man,  what  women  have  done,  homes,  furniture,  beau- 
tiful things,  the  story  of  art,  the  Grail,  science,  Newton,  customs, 
looking  backward,  Buddhists,  the  religion  of  India.  Then  there  are 
stories  of  Confucius,  Mohammed,  Christian  and  Moor,  Egypt,  Assy- 
rian, Babylonian,  Romans,  Greeks,  Parsees,  etc.  These  volumes  are 
much  less  systematic  and  less  calculated  to  be  pedagogically  impres- 
sive than  are  the  French  books  devoted  to  the  same  aim.  They  are, 
however,  on  the  whole,  better  than  the  Sheldon  series. 

I.  Kooistra  ^  wrote  in  Dutch  a  concise  treatise  on  moral  education 
which  reached  its  third  edition  when  it  was  translated  into  German 
by  E.  Mueller.  It  is  exceedingly  comprehensive  and  practical.  It 
first  considers  the  subject  from  the  personality  of  the  teacher,  who 
must  have  health,  poise,  firmness,  equanimity,  justice,  and  happi- 
ness. From  the  standpoint  of  the  home  and  school  he  considers 
how  they  must  work  together,  the  present  unsatisfactory  relations, 
their  cause  and  cure,  the  advantages  of  mutual  visitations  and 
school  evenings,  and  the  physician  as  a  link  between  the  home  and 

'  Sittliche  Erziehung.     Leipzig,  Wunderlich,  1899,  100  p. 


MORAL    EDUCATION  231 

school.  Under  working  order  he  considers  the  best  conditions  for 
will,  how  a  child  can  be  helped,  the  feeling  of  responsibility,  gardens, 
and  pedagogical  evenings,  good  customs,  order,  courtesy,  systems 
of  advancement  of  each.  Under  poetry  in  child  life  he  treats  of 
happiness  as  a  means  of  education,  the  gifts  that  lead  to  it  and  its 
conditions ;  the  interests  of  teachers  and  brothers,  sisters  and  rela- 
tives; household  order;  prizing  the  good  of  others;  care  for  serv- 
ants; class  spirit;  the  child's  relation  to  nature;  the  culture  of 
gratitude;  should  the  child  feel  this  sentiment  toward  its  parents; 
disillusions;  selecting  a  happy  humor;  children  who  are  quick-tem- 
pered or  spoiled;  the  right  to  be  buoyant  and  happy;  child  visits 
to  theater,  concert,  balls;  the  necessity  of  preserving  the  childlike 
in  the  child;  birthdays;  charity;  St.  Nicholas  and  stork  question. 
In  treating  the  school  as  a  servant  of  moral  education,  he  describes 
the  tedious  and  the  good  teacher;  class  instruction;  rivalry;  place 
taking  and  sense  of  one's  own  worth  and  of  the  value  of  knowl- 
edge ;  the  fact  of  education  and  thought.  Under  suggestion  he 
treats  of  what  the  teacher  can  do  by  his  own  external  appearance 
and  what  he  does  by  example ;  what  he  says ;  how  far  it  is  well 
and  when  to  invade  the  natural  freedom  of  the  child ;  kind  of  talk- 
ing about  good  and  bad;  dress;  how  children  arc  bound  to  be  what 
we  think  them  to  be;  the  indifferent  child;  falling  under  sus])icion ; 
command  and  prohibition;  the  passionate  child;  requests;  how  to 
make  good  seem  tedious  or  attractive;  modesty;  a  lapse  into  old, 
bad  ways;  how  children  have  a  good  memory  for  good  deeds;  he 
would  hinder  the  bad  by  supervision  and  discuss  his  temptation ; 
promises;  keeping  of  secrets;  friendships;  the  pedagogical  errors  of 
dispersing,  threatening,  punishing,  and  rewarding.  Under  penalties 
he  treats  of  judicial  and  pedagogic  punishment  and  describes  when 
the  latter  should  be  applied,  when  it  does  most  good  and  is  a  nat- 
ural penalty,  and  whether  there  should  be  punishment  for  careless- 
ness. He  thinks  it  should  not  be  inflicted  immediately ;  should  not  be 
too  strict  in  instruction ;  describes  when  he  would  send  from  the 
class;  how  he  would  treat  impudence;  face  making;  how  he  would 
prepare  the  child  for  punishment;  when  he  would  place  him  in  the 
corner;  when  it  should  be  physical;  discusses  the  dark  room;  calling 
before  the  class ;  the  considerations  afterwards ;  the  value  and  place 
of  regret  and  resolution ;  punishing  several  together.  Under  honor 
he  treats  of  love  of  truth;  lies  of  necessity;  failures  in  lessons  and 
excuses;  the  discussion  of  falsehoods;  lies  from  fear;  how  mistrust 
is  a  penalty ;  how  to  treat  theft ;  and  finally,  in  the  education  of 
girls,  he  discusses  the  difference  between  the  sexes;  the  girls'  weak- 
ness or  strength  of  body  and  mind;  traditional  ideals;  immodesty 
and  diffidence;  politics;  the  desire  to  draw  attention  to  herself;  self- 
renunciation  and  sacrifice;  the  aim  of  life;  and  the  training  for 
wifehood  and  motherhood. 

Mr.  M.  Fairchild,  of  Baltimore,  shows  two  or  three  score  of  stcre- 
opticon  pictures  per  lecture  of  actual   scenes  he  has  photographed 


232  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

as  he  could  catch  them  from  boy  life,  illustrating  moral  principles  in 
action.  During  ten  years  he  has  gathered  data  for  three  or  four 
lectures  and  hopes  to  have  a  dozen  or  so,  and  also  that  the  work 
may  be  carried  on  later  by  others.  This  method  is  concrete  and 
specific  and  is  highly  commended  by  teachers,  parents,  and  boys  who 
have  seen  it.  It  deals  largely  with  school  life  and  the  lectures  are 
intended  primarily  for  schools.  The  idea  is  to  show  ethical  princi- 
ples in  action.  This  suggests  whether  the  moving  pictures  might  not 
be  more  effectively  used  here.  Typical  dramas  of  boy  and  girl  life 
might  be  carefully  rehearsed  and  then  acted  out  before  the  camera; 
and  thus,  it  would  seem,  they  might  be  made  more  animated,  typical, 
and  effective.  The  possibilities  of  moral  education  in  the  innumer- 
able nickleodeon  shows  mainly  supported  by  children  and  young  peo- 
ple are  incalculable.^ 

The  Brownlee  System  of  Toledo,  Ohio,  for  moral  education  as- 
sumes that  thoughts  are  things,  that  the  mind  like  the  body  needs 
food,  and  so  the  thought  power  is  put  to  work  somewhat  as  follows : 
a  word  is  chosen,  one  for  each  month :  kindness,  cleanliness,  obedi- 
ence, self-control,  courtesy,  and  cheerfulness,  work,  honor,  honesty, 
clean  language,  manners.  The  topics  may  be  subdivided,  giving  a 
week  each.  The  word  is  beautifully  lettered  large  on  the  blackboard 
as  well  as  on  a  banner  at  the  entrance.  Maxims  illustrating  it  are 
memorized;  their  ideas  are  brought  out.  And  then,  having  sensed 
their  thought  power,  they  are  organized  in  a  school  city,  each  grade 
a  ward,  but  only  the  fifth  to  the  eighth  eligible  to  office.  The  mayor 
must  be  from  the  graduating  class  and  offices  are  held  for  five 
months.  The  maxim  of  the  nominating  convention  is :  "  Say  all 
the  good  you  can  of  your  own  candidate  and  not  a  word  against 
the  opponent."  Once  a  month  there  are  citizens'  meetings.  The 
insistence  upon  the  word  seems  suggested  by  certain  mind  curists 
who  hang  up  words  like  "  Health,"  "  There  is  no  disease,"  and 
fixate  it  as  the  people  of  Israel  did  the  brazen  serpent  of  Moses  and 
became  well. 

In  the  volumes  of  the  Revue  de  I'Hypnotisme,  now  approaching 
its  twenty-fifth  year,  are  many  cases  of  boys  and  girls  reported  to 
have  been  cured  of  truancy,  lying,  masturbation,  and  various  other 
juvenile  faults  by  being  hypnotized,  and  when  in  that  state  given 
authoritative  commands  or  moral  sermonettes  by  way  of  suggesting 
to  them  to  cease  the  indulgence  of  the  evil  propensity  in  question. 
This  being  done  while  they  are  still  in  the  hypnotic  state,  they  are 
taken  to  a  neighboring  room  to  sleep  awhile  under  the  influence 
of  the  injunction  to  betterment.  They  sometimes  come  repeatedly 
at  stated  intervals,  and  in  many  cases  are  reported  cured  or  im- 
proved. I  have  seen  the  process  and  been  assured  by  Dr.  Berillon 
that  the  method  is  very  effective.     His  institution,  however,   is  not 

»See  Walter  H.  Page,  Teaching  Morals  by  Photographs.  World's  Work, 
March,  1910,  pp.  12715-12725. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  233 

connected  with  the  school  system  or  the  city  government,  but  is 
frequently  resorted  to  by  anxious  parents  with  wayward  children. 
I  know  of  no  such  systematic  application  of  this  method  of  moral 
orthopedics  elsewhere,  and  there  is  much  skepticism  as  to  the  effi- 
ciency claimed  for  it.  Yet,  that  the  far  more  subtle  and  laborious 
method  of  psycho-analysis,  which  the  Freud  school  apply,  not  in  the 
hypnogogic  or  hypnoid,  but  merely  in  the  tranquil  state,  has  often 
caused  great  moral  improvement,  seems  undoubted,  especially  in 
those  with  neurotic  traits.  Possibly  there  may  develop  in  this  field 
in  the  future  some  effective  aid  to  virtue. 

A.  von  Overbeck  ^  has  developed  with  great  clearness  and  fullness 
the  present  necessity  of  expanding  all  preventive  functions  for  youth 
who  are  exposed  to  crime,  and  thinks  that  to  treat  the  subject  ade- 
quately requires  a  revision  of  the  entire  social  structure.  He  almost 
seems  to  abolish  the  distinction  between  those  who  attempt  and  those 
who  accomplish  crime,  and  would  have  both  punished  alike,  if  not, 
indeed,  participants  and  accessories.  Criminal  law,  he  regards,  both 
in  its  provision  and  in  its  execution,  as  an  inexpressibly  clumsy 
instrument  which  does  immense  harm. 

H.  S.  Gray  ^  brings  sanity  into  this  field,  showing  that  while  ciga- 
rettes are  perhaps  the  least  harmful  form  of  tobacco  in  themselves, 
in  another  sense  they  are  the  most  harmful.  Some  think  boys  that 
smoke  cigarettes  are  like  wormy  apples  that  fall  from  the  tree  before 
they  are  ripe.  They  may  indulge  in  the  habit  to  a  great  excess  until 
it  becomes  a  dope.  Perhaps  it  leads  to  other  forms  of  narcotics, 
but  it  is  singular  that  so  little  is  really  known  scientifically  upon 
the  subject.  We  have,  of  course,  statistics  showing  that  very  few 
high-grade  pupils  smoke,  that  it  is  bad  for  athletes  and  often  goes, 
whether  as  cause  or  effect  is  uncertain,  with  mental  and  moral 
defect. 

G.  H.  Palmer  ^  does  not  believe  in  special  moral  education  in 
schools,  but  thinks  that  the  school  itself  and  its  studies  should  be  an 
ethical  instrument,  not  only  a  place  of  learning  but  a  social  whole. 
Although  himself  an  eminent  academic  authority  on  theoretical  ethics, 
he  gives  no  sign  of  acquaintance  with  any  other  of  the  many  prob- 
lems of  the  pedagogy  of  ethics  now  under  discussion.  The  only 
new  thought  in  this  exquisitely  phrased  monograph  Is  a  plea  for  a 
noble  kind  of  imitation  and  influence.  Personal  influence  is  not 
increased  by  intimacy  but  rather  "  familiarity  breeds  contempt." 
The  young,  brought  into  close  association  with  their  elders,  are 
prone  to  fix  on  petty  points  and  especially  errors  and  miss  the  larger 
lines  of  character.     Hence,  "  distance  is  a  help  in  inducing  enchant- 

'  Die  Erscheinungsformen  des  Verbrechens  im  Lichte  der  modcrnen  Strafrechts- 
schulc.     Leipzig,  Engclmann,  1909,  60  p. 

'  The  Boy  and  the  Cigarette  Habit.     Education,  Jan.,  190Q,  vol.  29,  pp.  294-315. 

» Ethical  and  Moral  Instruction  in  Schools.  Boston,  Houghton,  Mifflin  Co., 
1909.  56  P- 


234  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ment,  and  nothing  is  so  destructive  of  high  influence  as  a  slap-on- 
the-back  acquaintance.  One  who  is  to  help  us  much  must  be  above  us. 
A  teacher  should  carefully  respect  his  own  dignity,"  etc.  We  must 
not  cheapen  ourselves,  and  an  occasional  weighty  word  is  better  than 
frequent  talks.  The  teacher  ought  to  be  the  sort  of  person  the 
pupil  would  like  to  be.  We  should  accept  our  pupils'  admiration 
and  deserve  it.  If  they  long  above  all  things  to  be  the  kind  of  per- 
son we  are,  we  are  having  the  right  influence  upon  them ;  and  if 
pupils  are  supplied  with  teachers  who,  without  swerving  from  their 
proper  aim  of  imparting  knowledge,  will  supply  them  with  intellec- 
tual, social,  and  personal  righteousness,  nothing  more  is  needed. 

Josiah  Royce  ^  conceives  duty  in  terms  of  loyalty  which,  properly 
defined,  he  thinks  to  constitute  the  whole  moral  law  and  to  be  the 
cause  of  all  virtues.  His  loyalty,  however,  is  to  causes  and  ideas 
rather  than  to  persons,  so  that  he  does  scant  justice  to  the  potency 
of  fealty  to  leaders  and  heroes.  Everything  culminates  in  "  loyalty 
to  loyalty."  Each  must  as  his  supreme  task  interpret  and  define 
the  eternal  in  his  life.  This  devotion  to  a  carefully  chosen  and 
super-provincial  cause  potentializes  life.  "  I  could  not  love  thee, 
dear,  so  much,  loved  I  not  '  virtue '  more."  Its  motivation  is  thus 
anti-  or  rather  super-pragmatic.  Hence,  valuable  as  this  volume 
is  as  a  somewhat  popular  statement  of  the  author's  philosophy,  it 
contains  little  that  is  of  great  psychological  value,  and  hardly  a  refer- 
ence to  the  passion  of  loyalty  in  childhood  to  persons. 

This  must  suffice  to  illustrate  the  welter  of  opinion  upon 
the  subject,  the  diversity  of  viewpoints,  the  differences  of 
stress,  and  our  remoteness  from  any  general  consensus,  and 
especially  the  illimitable  vastness  of  this  field.  Meanwhile, 
many  writers  have  attempted  to  give  their  theories  concrete 
form  in  moral  text-books  for  the  young.  In  these  there  is 
more  agreement,  and  they  are  a  great  advance  upon  the  moral 
pabulum  prepared  for  children  in  the  be-good  literature  of  a 
generation  ago,  vastly  more  definite  and  less  sentimental, 
while  the  hortatory  element  has  faded  and  left  hardly  a  trace. 
They  differ,  too,  almost  toto  coclo  from  the  academic  text- 
books in  moral  science  which  are  mostly  theoretical  and  specu- 
lative, discussing  such  abstract  problems  as  freedom  of  the  will, 
the  nature  of  oughtness,  the  sanctions  of  goodness,  etc.  Of 
remorse  or  even  regret  for  errors,  we  nowadays  hear  very 
little,  and  the  bad  boy  rarely  meets  prompt  and  condign  pun- 
ishment, as  in  the  older  literature.     There  is  vastly  less  about 

^Philosophy  of  Loyalty.     N.  Y.,  Macmillan,  1908,  409  p. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  235 

sins  or  even  faults,  and  chief  emphasis  is  put  upon  positive 
good  conduct,  as  if  the  effort  was  to  protect  the  young  from  all 
knowledge  of  what  is  bad. 
-I,^  Need  and  Status. — Is  the  need  for  moral  education  really 
as  great  as  many  frantic  writers  and  declaimers  represent? 
The  percentage  of  juvenile  crime  is  increasing  in  most  civilized 
communities  and  the  average  age  of  first  commitments  is  de- 
clining. But  city  life  makes  many  acts,  particularly  petty  theft, 
criminal  which  in  the  country  are  only  larks.  What  vital 
country  boy  has  not  stolen  or  would  not  have  sometime,  per- 
haps many  times,  been  arrested  if  a  policeman  had  caught  him 
at  all  the  worst  things  he  ever  did  ?  Who  has  not  lied,  broken 
the  Sabbath,  used  bad  language,  done  obscene  acts?  What  a 
large  proportion  of  the  legion  of  faults,  for  which  Kozle 
enumerates  some  nine  hundred  German  words  for  use  in  scold- 
ing, which  parents  and  teachers  condemn,  are  really  only 
offenses  against  their  convenience  and  not  due  to  real  deprav- 
ity, such  as  noisiness,  manifestations  of  animal  spirits  and 
disobedience  of  commands  w'hich  a  larger  wisdom  would  never 
have  imposed.  Waywardness  may  be  only  the  first  outcrop 
of  a  strong  will.  The  scores  of  gangs  in  every  large  city, 
despite  their  evils,  do  not  very  often  become  criminally  lawless 
though  their  spirit  may  be  so.  The  fact  is,  most  adult  stand- 
ards of  virtue  for  children  are  often  so  unnatural  as  to  be 
impossible.  Again,  exceptional  children  very  often  experience 
the  tragedy  of  being  misunderstood  when  the  applications  of 
the  very  first  principles  of  child  study  would  have  saved  them. 
With  the  herding  of  children  in  platoons  and  the  lockstep 
methods  of  schools,  with  the  decay  of  the  parental  instinct, 
the  native-born  American  has  lost  touch  w^ith  childhood  as 
never  in  the  history  of  the  world,  so  that  children  were  never 
quite  so  orphaned  as  here.  Everywhere  children  tend  to  be 
blamed  about  inversely  as  their  nature  and  needs  are  known, 
and  where  they  go  wrong  in  tender  years,  arc  they  not  more 
often  sinned  against  than  sinning?  Alas!  we  have  no  national 
Pittsburg  Survey,  no  adequate  statistics  or  no  psycho-analyses 
that  go  to  the  heart  of  the  matter  and  give  us  the  clear,  cold, 
indubitable  answers  to  these  queries.  Scientific  data  concern- 
ing even  sex  al)errations.  the  worst  of  moral  dangers  which 
children  are  exposed  to,  are  not  sufficiently  extensive  or  ade- 


236  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

quate.  Where  proper  vents,  long  circuits  and  alteratives  are 
supplied  for  the  animal  propensities,  it  is  amazir.g  to  see  how 
even  viciousness  rights  itself.  Violations  of  adult  prohibitions 
under  existing  conditions  are  no  test  of  the  innate  moral  nature 
of  the  young,  who  need  not  so  much  moral  instruction  as  op- 
portunity, not  so  much  precept  as  incentive  and  example,  and  it 
is  parents  and  teachers  that  first  need  reformation.  It  is  our 
moral  codes  and  ideals  for  the  young  that  require  reconstruc- 
tion. We  have  yet  to  learn  that  conscience  in  the  primary 
grades  is  for  the  most  part  an  artifact  and  that  a  sense  of  duty 
easily  becomes  a  form  of  precocity  in  girls  in  short  skirts  and 
in  boys  in  knickerbockers.  The  moral  sense  in  its  rudimentary 
stage  is  very  often  dwarfed  by  being  overworked  and  is  often 
assumed  before  it  begins  to  bud,  and  this  always,  and  in  every 
field,  brings  later  apathy,  if  not  repugnance.  A  few  sample 
returns  will  shed  light  upon  the  actual  moral  status  of  average 
children  and  youth. 

L.  W.  Kline*  gathered  returns  from  2,384  children  from  which 
he  infers  that  judgments  of  right  and  justice  among  children  from 
eight  to  eighteen  are  more  due  to  emotional  than  to  mental  processes. 
Children  of  this  age  are,  he  thinks,  more  altruistic  than  selfish, 
country  children  more  so  than  city  children,  and  finds  girls  more 
sympathetic  than  boys  and  more  easily  prejudiced.  An  unfortunate 
girl  in  a  story  was,  as  if  to  compensate  for  her  misfortune,  endowed 
with  virtues  which  were  not  suggested.  The  punishments  were 
perhaps  not  only  excessive  but  cruel.  In  some  homes,  evidently 
where  moralizing  has  been  overdone,  there  was  a  feverish  desire 
to  express  ethical  views  which  had  interfered  with  the  healthfulness 
of  the  moral  tone.  Boys  were  more  original  than  girls  and  country 
than  city  children. 

F.  W.  Osborn  ^  asked  forty-five  boys  and  girls  between  nine  and 
eleven  what  a  boy  or  girl  must  do  to  be  good  and  bad.  The  same 
questions  were  asked  of  a  similar  class  of  children  in  the  public 
schools.  The  result  showed  that  the  moral  ideas  of  children  are 
very  concrete.  The  good  boy  minds  mother,  teacher,  does  not  quar- 
rel, lie,  whisper,  behaves  in  chapel,  etc.  More  than  half  of  both 
sexes  emphasized  the  importance  of  obedience.  Truthfulness  came 
next,  but  at  a  great  distance.  Does  this  mean  that  the  former 
habit  has  been  best  established?    Girls  are  more  impressed  with  the 

'  A  Study  in  Juvenile  Ethics.     Ped.  Sem.,  June,  1903,  vol.  10,  pp.  239-66. 
'The   Ethical   Contents  of   Children's   Minds.     Educational   Review,    1894, 
voL  8,  pp.  143-46. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  237 

importance  of  truthfulness  than  boys.  Ethical  ideas  evidently  arise 
through  self-activity.  They  are  first  egoistic,  but  pass  rapidly  to 
altruism.  Children  of  the  rich  do  not  always  possess  the  highest 
moral  standards. 

M.  L.  Roussel  *  studied  3,643  answers,  most  of  them  from  children 
between  eight  and  thirteen  years  of  age,  to  the  question  "  What  is 
the  most  beautiful  act  you  ever  saw  done?"  Of  these,  128  had 
never  seen  a  beautiful  act;  498  were  unclassifiable,  such  as  having 
seen  a  house  built,  a  man  play  billiards  with  his  feet,  or  a  present. 
Acts  of  devotion,  so-called,  1,535.  O^  these,  732  had  seen  people 
rescued  from  drowning;  199  had  seen  rescues  from  fire;  353  had 
seen  runaway  horses  stopped;  31  had  seen  a  mad  dog  killed.  Under 
acts  of  charity  there  were  608  mentioned;  acts  of  friendly  aid  and 
solidarity,  535;  restoring  lost  objects  to  their  owners,  139;  help 
to  animals,  49;  adoption  of  poor  children,  39;  separating  fighters, 
32;  and  there  were  many  miscellaneous  deeds.  Often  the  sex  was 
not  mentioned,  but  714  replies,  at  least,  were  by  girls,  and  1,616  by 
boys.  Acts  of  charity  were  mentioned  nearly  three  times  as  often 
by  girls,  and  those  of  general  assistance  about  twice  as  often.  For 
young  children  beautiful  and  heroic  acts  are  often  not  distinguished, 
although  perhaps  the  term  "  beautiful  "  is  more  often  used  to  desig- 
nate acts  of  devotion  rather  than  of  charity.  Rescue  from  drown- 
ing is  a  classic  example,  and  37  per  cent  of  such  rescues  reported 
were  by  children,  although  they  saved  but  few  people  from  fire  and 
performed  few  deeds  of  charity.  Nearly  half  of  the  total  num- 
ber reporting  had  seen  the  acts  they  described,  and  the  rest  were 
reported  from  books  and  other  sources.  The  latter  sometimes  lack 
sincerity,  as,  for  instance,  where  a  boy  saves  an  enemy  from  drown- 
ing and  says:  "Now  I  am  avenged!"  Theatrical  sentiments  often 
appear,  and  sometimes  the  dishonesty  appears  in  that  imaginary 
deeds  are  seen,  or  those  read  of  are  described  as  if  the  writer  was 
the  hero.  There  is  some  lack  of  sincerity  from  the  opposite  cause, 
namely,  a  certain  repugnance  to  tell  their  own  intimate  thoughts 
and  feelings.  Sometimes  John  or  Mary  or  other  model  children 
are  described  in  the  first  person.  The  questions  answered  as  an 
exercise  in  composition  are  answered  with  a  view  to  produce  a 
favorable  literary  opinion.  Reports  that  are  plainly  personal  and 
sincere,  which  are  not  so  very  numerous,  are  easy  to  detect.  Un- 
fortunately some  of  the  acts  cited  as  beautiful  are  neither  natural 
nor  really  good,  and  the  question  is  inevitable  whether  some  of  these 
good-book  deeds  really  aid  in  the  moral  education  of  the  young. 
Moreover,  they  eclipse  the  homely  and  trivial  events  of  daily  life. 
Almost  the  only  act  which  stands  for  patriotism  in  the  mind  of  the 
child  is  dying  on  the  field  of  battle  and  thus  winning  the  fame  and 
glory  of  a  hero.     Whether  children  really  can  love  their  country  is 

'  Rapport  sur  la  plus  belle  action.  Bulletin  de  la  Soci^t^  Libre  pour  I'Etude 
Psychologique  de  I'Enfant.    Janvier,  1903,  pp.  245-52. 


238  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

a  question  difficult  to  answer,  and  is  made  still  more  so  by  the  re- 
turns upon  this  subject.  Whether  the  French  text-books  on  moral 
and  civic  training,  which  so  often  represent  children  as  prodigies 
of  virtue,  and  which  is  always  triumphantly  rewarded,  sometimes  in 
a  melodramatic  way,  where  the  little  hero  goes  to  death  rejoicing, 
where  the  rich  man  who  gives  alms  is  always  praised,  are  wholly 
good  is  a  question;  whether  it  is  sufficient  is  doubtful. 

Dr.  M.  Carrara  ^  describes  a  large  number  of  boys  in  the  uni- 
versity town  of  Cagliari  from  ten  to  fourteen  who  are  restless,  lazy, 
and  unoccupied  and  infest  the  streets  of  this  university  town  in  Italy. 
The  example  of  their  comrades  often  affords  incitements  to  crime. 
But  very  careful  studies  of  fifty  of  these  boys  with  regard  to  their 
physical  and  psychic  traits  fail  to  show  many  of  Lombroso's  marks 
of  criminality.  Indeed,  the  true  criminal  type  of  Lombroso  is  ex- 
tremely rare,  although  there  are  often  degenerative  anomalies. 
True,  there  have  been  many  crimes,  mostly  petty,  and  many  com- 
mitments, mostly  brief,  and  occasionally  a  boy  has  been  committed 
perhaps  a  dozen  times.  On  the  least  pretext  they  pass  indifferently 
from  one  profession  to  another  in  a  way  that  shows  that  the  trouble 
is  not  in  the  conditions  of  work  but  in  the  nature  of  the  children 
and  their  insurmountable  sloth.  Their  peculations  are  bits  of  coal, 
wood,  eggs,  and  trifles.  Not  a  few  of  them  cut  loose  from  home 
and  sleep  where  they  can.  It  may  be  they  sell  matches  or  shoe- 
strings. The  older  of  these  boys  are  very  often  guilty  of  sexual 
crimes.  There  is  some  precocity,  disease,  hetero-  and  homo-sexual- 
ism.  Almost  all  of  the  boys  maintain  their  religious  practices. 
They  are  illiterate  and  defy  the  law  of  compulsory  school  attendance. 
But  as  a  class  they  are  criminals  neither  by  habit  nor  occasion,  nor 
even  criminaloid.  Whenever  they  find  the  right  openings  for  their 
activity  their  criminal  tendencies  speedily  disappear,  so  that  what 
seems  the  threatening  army  of  coming  criminals  really  never  does 
much  harm. 

F.  C.  Sharp  ^  asked  one  hundred  and  forty  students  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin,  some  of  whom  were  newcomers  from  the  farm  for 
an  elementary  fourteen  weeks'  course,  and  the  rest  upper  class  men  and 
women  in  the  Arts  Department,  a  number  of  casuistic  questions,  each 
set  in  detailed  circumstances,  of  which  the  following  is  an  epitome  of 
samples:  Might  a  poor  man  steal  from  a  rich  one  if  only  thus  could 
he  save  the  life  of  a  starving  child?  Should  children  be  told  of 
Santa  Claus?  May  a  youth  who  promised  his  father  to  give  up  the 
law,  which  he  loved,  and  enter  the  latter's  business,  which  he  hated, 
revert  to  his  own  desires  after  the  father's  death,  if  the  business 

^  Les  Petits  Vagabonds  de  Cagliari.     Revue  de  THypnotisme,  1902,  vol.  16,  pp. 

135-39- 

*  A  Study  of  the  Influence  of  Custom  on  the  Moral  Judgment.  University  of 
Wisconsin,  Madison,  1908,  144  p. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  239 

grew  bad  and  seemed  insupportable?  Should  a  besieged  camp  give 
up  an  innocent  man  to  be  tortured  by  Indians,  who  would  otherwise 
overpower  and  kill  all  in  the  camp?  May  a  doctor  poison  a  hope- 
less cancer  case,  if  the  patient  so  desires?  May  a  poor  author  sell 
the  authorship  of  his  book  to  a  rich  man  ?  May  a  poor  student 
cancel  in  mid  year  his  room  engagement  if  he  finds  another  which 
he  can  occupy  without  paying,  if  otherwise  he  would  have  to  give 
up  his  education?  Should  a  man  save  his  own  baby,  or  by  turning 
a  switch  save  a  train  from  wreckage?  etc.  A  collection  of  such 
questions  with  variations  of  circumstance  was  answered  in  writing 
and  later  explained  and  pressed  home  orally.  The  replies  fall  in 
general  into  two  groups :  the  rigoristic,  representing  those  who  had 
always  observed  the  rule  of  right,  more  or  less  regardless  of  con- 
sequences, sometimes  because  of  the  sense  of  authority  or  foreign 
pressure,  e.g.,  from  God,  Scripture,  etc.  (the  latter  being  most  im- 
portant among  the  youth  from  the  farms)  ;  while  the  other  class 
were  more  eudemonistic,  or  would  be  guided  by  general  welfare 
or  the  idea  of  the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest  number.  The 
welfare  reason  for  adhering  to  the  letter  of  general  rules  or  com- 
mands is  based,  of  course,  on  the  danger  of  still  further  infrac- 
tions if  a  single  exception  is  permitted,  the  efifects  that  would  fol- 
low if  everyone  acted  in  this  way,  etc.  The  rigoristic  attitude 
tends  to  disappear  with  intellectual  progress,  which  inclines  us  to 
look  at  situations  as  a  whole.  Those  who  do  this  are  more  able 
to  give  reasons  for  their  choices.  With  the  less  educated,  custom 
or  uninherited  manner  of  conduct  is  more  potent,  the  general  con- 
sensus of  the  community  more  obligatory,  and  the  conscience  of  the 
majority  is  regarded  as  a  safer  guide  than  one's  own.  The  demands 
of  society  or  God  rather  than  an  inner,  autonomous,  categorical  im- 
perative are  normative.  In  such  cases  there  is  immediacy  of  judg- 
ment, as  in  judgments  of  beauty  and  taste,  about  which  there  is 
really  no  syllogistic  process.  None  of  either  class  of  these  students 
had  ever  studied  ethics.  Had  the  Arts  answerers  done  so,  they 
would  probably  have  shown  still  further  departure  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  young  farmers.  Strange  to  say,  although  the  number 
of  responders  of  each  sex  were  nearly  equal,  no  account  was  taken 
of  sex  differences.  Moreover,  the  author's  standpoint  is  curiously 
apologetic  for  the  very  use  of  the  questionnaire  method,  which  he 
does  in  a  confused  and  ineffective  way  despite  the  genuine  value  of 
his  returns,  which  would  be  increased  were  they  less  sophisticated. 
One  conclusion,  which  is  not  emphasized,  is  that  the  teiulcncy  of 
culture,  which  is  to  look  at  moral  situations  as  a  whole,  is  vastly 
harder  than  to  follow  simple  rules.  Customs  are  potent,  and  eman- 
cipation from  their  authority  tends  to  make  every  moral  judgment 
a  case  by  itself,  as  it  should  be,  with  new  and  special  features  for 
which  no  science  or  prescription  is  a  sufficient  guide.  The  impor- 
tance of  each  new  situation  and  of  each  individual  looms  up  into 
the   foreground  and  requires  a  new  verdict,  in  which   innate   tem- 


240  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

perament,  habit,  intelligence,  and  perhaps  heredity  reach  a  new 
equiHbrium.  From  this  it  seems  to  follow  that,  for  moral  education, 
wider  knowledge  of  social  relations  is  of  far  more  practical  im- 
portance than  general  ethical  principles,  which  are  liable  to  make  us 
blind  to  the  special  features  of  cases  as  they  arise  and  which  also 
predispose  to  casuistry.  Specific  moral  education  doubtless  tends  to 
abate  the  influence  of  outer  authority  and  to  give  us  more  confidence 
in  inner  intuition;  and  when  this  latter  is  reasoned  on,  general  wel- 
fare slowly  tends  to  supplant  it  as  the  supreme  criterion.  Thus  the 
rigorism  that  follows  the  letter  and  admits  no  exception  is  easy, 
is  the  mark  of  lowly,  simple,  undeveloped  souls.  It  is  no  doubt  the 
safest  for  the  masses.  To  make  individual  moral  judgments  requires 
unusual  intellectual  gifts  and  culture  and  exposes  those  who  advance 
toward  this  standard  to  at  least  a  period  of  great  moral  danger  in 
which  desires  distort  the  impartiality  of  reason.  The  height  of  this 
standard  is  one  which  only  a  few  can  attain.  Hence,  again,  we  see 
the  risk  of  substituting  ratiocination  in  this  field  for  immediate  in- 
tuition. 


Need  of  Larger  and  More  Liberal  Views  on  Morals. — 
One  of  the  gravest  defects  and  dangers  in  our  present  practices 
here  is  the  loss  of  perspective  and  orientation.  Petty  faults 
to  our  myopic  conscience  are  seen  in  the  same  perspective  as 
great  ones.  Our  Cathohc  brethren  long  since  sought  to  over- 
come this  loss  of  orientation  by  a  system  involving  a  hierarchy, 
at  the  summit  of  v^hich  were  the  seven  deadly  sins:  pride, 
avarice,  luxury,  enmity,  anger,  appetite,  sloth;  and  the  seven 
cardinal  virtues:  wisdom,  courage,  temperance,  justice,  faith, 
hope,  and  love.  These  have  been  made  the  basis  of  an  excel- 
lent ethical  treatise  by  a  Protestant,  James  Stalker,^  who 
sought  to  defend  this  view  of  the  moral  world  from  the  charge 
of  casuistry  in  so  ranking  and  grading  virtues  that,  in  cases  of 
conflict  such  as  often  arise,  the  lesser  duty  should  give  way  to 
the  greater.  We  may  not  accept  these  sins  and  virtues  as 
supreme.  The  interpretations  of  some  of  them  are  very 
diverse.  But  they  certainly  teach  us  the  great  lesson  that  in 
the  moral  field  there  are  almost  infinite  gradations  of  both  guilt 
and  merit,  and  that  that  life  is  best  which  takes  large  views  of 
all  actions  and,  instead  of  the  futile  aim  at  absolute  perfection, 
does  at  every  crisis  the  best  thing  on  the  whole.  Conflict  of 
duties,  as  in  the  case  of  Jephthah's  daughter,  and  in  a  long  list 

*  The  Seven  Cardinal  Virtues.     New  York,  American  Tract  Society,  1902,  125  p. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  241 

of  problem  plays  from  the  Greek  drama  down,  have  a  subtle 
attraction  for  ratiocination  not  unlike  the  logical  paradoxes 
and  fallacies  of  Zeno,  but  are  only  confusing  when  it  comes  to 
the  issues  of  practical  life. 

Even  our  academic  ideas  and  customs  of  teaching  ethics 
to  college  youth  are  wretchedly  unpedagogic,  ineffective,  and 
casuistic.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the  glib  and  subtle  scholar 
who  can  pass  the  best  examination  on  the  theories  of  conscience, 
define  Kant's  categorical  imperative,  adjudicate  between 
Hedonism  and  intuitionalism,  and  characterize  the  stand- 
point of  the  great  writers  from  antiquity  down  on  the  sanc- 
tions of  virtue,  is  made  morally  better  thereby  or  worse.  The 
intellectualization  of  morality  is  a  dangerous  thing,  because  in 
this  field  what  can  be  proven  can  also  be  disproven,  and  Plato, 
who  would  forbid  it  for  boys  and  have  adolescents  flogged 
who  wanted  to  study  it,  was  at  any  rate  half  right.  Morals  is 
primarily  a  matter  of  will,  conduct,  sentiment ;  and  the  youth- 
ful mind  is  entirely  inadequate  to  deal  with  the  speculative 
problems  in  this  most  difficult  of  all  fields.  The  idea  of  the 
formal  methods  now  in  use,  of  didacticism,  of  cramming  for 
an  examination  in  ethics  to  be  marked  and  ranked,  is  essentially 
absurd,  if  not  demoralizing  in  itself,  for  it  misplaces  the  stress 
of  endeavor  and  tends  to  substitute  mere  study  for  practice. 

Effects  of  Feminism  on  Moral  Education. — While  very 
few,  if  any,  text-books  or  even  essays  on  morals  in  general 
have  ever  been  written  by  women,  perhaps  because  their  inter- 
est in  the  subject,  while  it  is  strong,  focuses  upon  so  few 
specific  aspects  of  it,  it  is  their  influence  that  has  been  the 
dominating  factor  in  the  present  method  of  laying  chief  stress 
upon  goodness  and  in  refusing  to  depict  evil  and  its  conse- 
quences, as  under  male  influence  and  once  in  the  pulpit  when, 
in  the  days  of  hell  fire,  the  latter  was  prominent.  But  now. 
save  in  the  matter  of  intemperance  and  cigarettes  alone,  in 
impressing  the  evils  of  which  they  appreciate  the  use  of  ap- 
palling instances,  most  mothers,  women  teachers,  and  men 
whose  mentation  is  habitually  in  a  feminine  atmosphere,  think 
that  girls  and  even  boys  do  not  need  to  know  much  about  bad- 
ness. They  still  cherish  ideals  of  ignorant  innocence  and  moral 
naivete,  such  as  used  to  culminate  in  convents.  *'  Why  know 
malaria  and  smallpox  in  order  to  be  well  ?  "  This  is  a  pro- 
17 


242  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

found  and.  in  its  effects,  often  a  disastrons  error.  Knowing 
e\il  is  not  halfway  to  doing  it,  but  often  the  best  of  all  pre- 
ventives and  deterrents.  Why  do  so  many  young  girls  go 
wrong?  Because  not  properly  instructed  and  thus  not  armed 
against  the  wiles  of  the  tempter.  What  is  their  plaint  and  that 
of  boys  infected  by  vice?  It  is  over  and  over  again  with 
tedious  monotony :  "  I  did  not  know ;  why  didn't  my  parent, 
teacher,  pastor,  doctor,  tell  me  ?  "  One  method  of  conserving 
health  is  by  describing  the  dangers  of  diseases  and  pointing  out 
the  consequences  of  unhygienic  modes  of  living.  One  method 
of  advancing  Christianity  is  by  showing  the  bad  results  of 
paganism  and  unbelief.  That  boys  need  to  know  something 
about  bad  boys  as  well  as  good  ones  is  almost  a  platitude. 
What  boy  ever  did,  does,  and  however  tenderly  sheltered, 
can  grow  up  thus  ignorant  of  evil  ?  A  universe  of  light,  with 
no  shadows  in  it,  would  be  as  monotonous  and  vacuous  as  one 
of  darkness ;  we  can  see  as  much  in  the  one  as  in  the  other.  An 
artist  must  know  and  use  black  and  dark  shades  to  bring  out 
white  and  light  ones  by  contrast.  The  very  essence  of  moral 
education,  consists  in  part  of  warnings  and  example.  What 
would  the  temperance  teacher  do  without  illustrations  of  the 
evil  of  intemperance  ?  To  inculcate  courage,  we  must  tell  about 
cowardice ;  to  teach  honesty,  we  must  show  the  evils  of  lying 
and  deceit  and  their  bad  consequences.  Can  anything  be  more 
obvious?  Knowledge  in  advance  preforms  moral  choices. 
Having  incited  children  to  choose  aright  in  ideal  cases,  the 
chances  are  increased  that  they  will  choose  aright  in  those  of 
real  life.  How  can  our  Lord  have  been  "  tempted  in  all 
points,"  if  He  had  not  known  about  evil?  I  plead  for  knowing 
evil  as  a  safeguard  against  doing  it.  We  must  know  the 
enemy  in  order  to  effectively  resist  or  attack  him.  But  this  is 
a  very  different  thing  from  joining  forces  with  him.  We 
study  disease  to  avoid  it  and  to  escape  its  evils.  Knowledge  of 
it  is  not  infection  with  it.  Only  Christian  Scientists  refuse  to 
recognize  and  perhaps  deny  the  existence  of  illness.  The  best 
medicine  is  preventive.  The  same  is  true  of  moral  diseases. 
A  great  function  of  ethics  is  preventive.  That  we  can  often 
turn  evil  to  good  account  as  an  incentive  to  virtue,  no  more 
makes  evil  good  than  the  fact  that  Plato  pointed  out  a  drunk- 
ard to  the  Athenian  youth  to  warn  them  against  his  state, 


MORAL   EDUCATION  243 

justified  the  besotted  condition  of  him  who  was  thus  made  an 
object  lesson.  The  very  function  of  knowledge  is  to  save 
from  error.  It  is  getting  experience  by  proxy.  Thus  we  util- 
ize the  blunders  and  mistakes  of  others  in  order  to  prevent 
their  intrusion  into  our  own  lives.  The  most  interesting  and 
most  useful  chapter  in  logic  is  that  which  deals  with  fallacies^ 
as  I  have  found  by  long  experience  in  teaching  it,  and  the  more 
common  and  insidious  they  seem  to  be,  the  greater  immunity 
against  their  habitual  use  the  student  acquires.  The  very  first 
thing  a  reformer  must  know  and  know  thoroughly,  if  he 
would  be  eflfective,  is  all  the  details  and  ramifications  of  the 
evil  he  would  correct.  Knowledge  of  cause  advances  the  suc- 
cessful application  of  cures,  and  great  moral  movements  that 
have  lifted  the  world  to  higher  levels  have  been  led  by  those 
who  knew  best  and  felt  most  keenly  the  inmost  nature  of  the 
iniquities  they  combated.  Indeed,  many  psychologists  are 
now  teaching  that  the  most  fundamental  characteristic  of  con- 
sciousness itself  is  remedial.  If  we  always  did  aright,  we 
should  no  more  know  that  we  have  a  conscience  than  he  whose 
heart,  lungs,  and  stomach  work  aright  is  conscious  of  their  ex- 
istence. If  sin  has  found  lodgment  in  the  soul,  we  evict  it  by 
clearly  envisaging  it,  realizing  it  fully  ourselves,  and  perhaps 
in  some  cases  confessing,  which  leads  to  forsaking  it. 

If  one  objects  to  this,  that  uniform  goodness  seems  a  rather 
dull  and  monotonous  thing  to  boys,  and  urges  that  decent  boys 
can  now  have  all  sorts  of  good  times  without  associating  with 
bad  boys,  I  reply,  of  course  they  can  and  should ;  one  of  the 
most  significant  advances  of  modern  times  is  tlie  many  and 
diversified  activities  in  which  boys  can  now  indulge  that  are 
only  helpful  and  pure,  and  these  must  be  developed  in  every 
way  and  in  as  many  directions  as  possible.  Many  of  these 
things,  now  good  by  every  token,  were  once  in  narrow,  more 
Puritanic  times,  thought  to  be  bad,  but  have  been  won  over 
from  the  domain  of  the  devil  and  sanified. 

The  trouble  is,  however,  that  this  has  not  gone  far  enough. 
So  long  as  an  innocent  game  of  cards  or  biiiianls.  dancing 
under  proj^er  conditions,  an  occasional  boy  fight  for  a  good 
cause,  certain  school  offenses,  the  heinousness  of  which  is  that 
they  are  chiefly  against  the  teacher's  ease  or  conventional  ideas 
of  order,  an  occasional  bit  of  slang,  or  even  a  swear  word,  a 


244  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

little  swerving  of  truth  as  it  seems  to  adults,  a  throb  of  anger, 
occasional  association  with  street  gangs,  with  a  transient  taint 
of  their  ways,  etc.,  are  regarded  as  worse  than  they  really  are 
and  are  treated  as  major  instead  of  as  minor  faults  of  the 
young,  their  life  is  robbed  of  some  color,  A  lad  who  has  never 
done  anything  that  he  or  his  fond  mother  ever  regrets,  has 
something  the  matter  with  him.  My  mail  has  for  years 
abounded  with  letters  from  aunts,  mothers,  and  lady  teachers 
who  are  distressed  about  the  faults  of  certain  boys,  mostly  in 
the  seething  age  of  the  early  teens,  faults  in  the  majority  of 
cases  which  are  rather  petty  and  transient.  Such  boys  have 
often  been  too  sheltered,  and  when  they  break  away  a  little 
and  meet  with  half-bad  associates,  they  are  far  more  liable  to 
be  infected  than  if  they  had  been  a  little  more  exposed  earlier. 
There  is  no  escaping  the  fact,  unintelligible  though  it  usually 
is  to  mothers,  that  just  as  inoculation  gives  immunity  against 
a  grave,  by  giving  a  mild  form  of  disease,  so  there  is  a  class 
of  minor  offenses  and  peccadillos,  some  personal  experience 
with  which  gives  boys  immunity  against  graver  sins.  It  does 
so  by  bringing  into  play  regrets  and  higher  powers  of  control 
and  rectification,  otherwise  dormant  in  the  soul,  and  which, 
like  everything  else,  need  occasional  exercise  in  order  to  come 
to  full  maturity  and  strength.  The  ordinary  Sunday  School 
and  ladylike  morality  does  not  understand  this,  and  thus  very 
often  fails  to  deal  aright  with  such  cases.  Man,  and  even 
animals,  learn  in  matters  of  conduct  by  the  method  which,  in 
the  laboratory,  we  call  that  of  trial  and  error.  It  is  thus  that 
all  experience  has  been  acquired.  If  the  wisdom  that  error  has 
inculcated  were  obliterated  from  the  life  of  any  individual,  how- 
ever good  he  may  be,  very  much  of  the  best  in  him  would  be 
lost.  It  is  along  precisely  these  lines  that  much  observation 
and  thought  have  lately  been  directed,  and  it  is  this  that  I  wish 
teachers  to  realize  a  little  more  clearly;  for  it  is  here  that  the 
woman's  standpoint,  noble  though  it  is,  often  needs  to  be  com- 
pared with  and  modified  by  that  of  a  thoughtful,  high-minded 
but  world-wise,  boy-knowing  and  virile  man. 

The  moral  differences  hetzveen  the  sexes  are  profound. 
Convention  usually  misinterprets  it  but  does  not  underestimate 
it,  for  it  is  innate  and  inexpugnable.  The  virtues  of  a  man  and 
of  a  woman  are  diverse  in  many  essential  respects,  as  are  their 


MORAL   EDUCATION  245 

relations  to  the  home,  industry,  and  pohtics.  ManHness  and 
womanliness  need  a  different  regimen  to  bring  them  to  their 
perfect  flower.  Patriotism,  parenthood,  honor,  courage — how 
very  different  these  are  for  each  sex,  not  to  speak  of  duty  in 
general  and  religion!  Men  and  women  each  have  their  own 
code  and  set  of  excellencies  and  even  those  that  are  more 
nearly  the  same  in  each  have  distinctions  which  moral  peda- 
gogues cannot  ignore.  Thus  there  is  sex  in  virtue  and  a  neuter 
ethics  has  its  place  only  in  the  theoretical,  but  hardly  in  the 
practical,  life.  In  Sparta,  woman  cultivated  masculine  virtues. 
Now,  under  the  influence  of  school  dames,  boys  and  young 
men  are  prone  as  probably  never  before  in  history  to  affect,  if 
not  to  really  have,  feminine  ideals  of  morality.  Here,  then, 
should  be  bifurcation  of  method  and  matter.  Boys  and  girls 
are  reliving  a  stage  when  the  field  of  the  activity  of  the  sexes 
differed  very  widely.  If  boys  are  taught  girls'  virtues,  then 
when  they  become  men  they  break  into  their  own  domain  of 
conduct  untrained  for  it.  Thus,  when  masculation  has  fully 
come,  they  are  more  raw  and  crude  morally  than  if  they  had 
had  no  instruction,  because  when  their  sex  asserts  itself  they 
revolt  at  the  virtues  they  have  been  taught  because  they  do  not 
fit  their  nature  and  needs  and  have  come  to  regard  the  virtuous 
life  as  a  womanish  thing;  and  in  throwing  it  off  they  become 
unvirtuous.  The  strong  nature  rebels  at  the  restraints  which 
female  mentors  tend  to  weave  about  budding  manhood ;  and 
because  they  are  not  familiarized  with  other  standards  and 
have  not  been  taught  to  appreciate  the  virtues  of  robust,  virile 
manhood,  dangers  ensue  which  might  be  avoided.  Thus,  the 
overdominance  of  able,  noble,  mature  women  upon  callow, 
young  men  not  infrequently  really  results  in  a  moral  debacle 
later  as  a  reaction.  As  the  school-bred  gentleness,  kindness, 
forbearance,  sweet  temper,  courtesy.  olK'dience,  onler,  pro- 
priety, peacefulness,  begin  to  pall  upon  the  moral  palate,  the 
youth  does  at  least  one  of  two  things  when  his  manhood 
bourgeons:  either  he  revolts  and  riots  in  bad  ways  for  a  time, 
or  else  begins  to  decay  from  within  from  some  form  of  secret 
vice,  which  latter  usually  comes  with  just  this  effeminate  pat- 
tern of  outer  morality  which  is  the  Ix'st  possible  mask  of  all 
to  conceal  the  bad  from  the  good  women.  I  have  come  to 
suspect  most  lx)ys  in  the  teens  who  arc  the  idols  of  their  own 


246  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

fond  mothers  or  the  paragons  of  their  lady  teachers,  although 
I  would  by  no  means  intimate  that  all  of  them  are  bad. 

Mother  mid  Child. — Perhaps  the  most  fundamental  moral 
training,  in  the  large  sense  of  diathesis,  begins  or  can  begin 
before  birth.  Planned  procreation  under  the  most  favorable 
conditions  for  both  parents  doubtless  can  do  far  more  than  is 
yet  known  to  give  a  riglit,  eugenic  momentum  to  the  primal 
power  of  heredity ;  but  this  mighty  and  mysterious  theme  must 
here  be  left  to  the  larger  knowledge  of  the  future,  as  must  the 
probably  no  less  significant  matter  of  mate  choosing.  During 
gestation  very  much  depends  upon  the  mood,  temper,  health 
and  occupation  of  the  mother.  She  who  does  most  for  herself 
does  most  for  her  child,  for  she  is  now  living  for  two.  If  she 
is  habitually  tranquil,  poised,  she  is  registering  these  states 
upon  the  organism  of  her  child.  Proper  nutrition,  exercise, 
and  sleep  enhance  the  original  moral  endowment  of  the  babe, 
while  the  effects  of  strain,  worry,  excitement  and  ill-health  take 
from  nature  and  add  to  the  task  of  nurture.  Newborn  babes 
are  very  susceptible  to  habit,  and  the  regularity  in  feeding  and 
sleeping  can  be  made  almost  mechanical.  They  are  profoundly 
affected  by  inevitableness,  as  they  are  by  kindness  in  all  minis- 
trations. Touch  is  the  chief  vehicle  of  communication  between 
mother  and  babe,  and  pats,  caresses,  handling  and  plenty  of  it, 
if  judicious,  preforms  the  soul  for  moral  tractability  and  safe- 
guards it  against  incipient  perversity.  Nursing,  too,  as  I  have 
elsewhere  pointed  out,  has  a  high  ethical  significance  for  both 
mother  and  child,  and  without  it  there  is  moral  as  well  as  physi- 
cal loss.  The  very  presence  of  the  parent  early  increases  the 
child's  disposition  to  do  what  pleases  and  brings  smiles,  and 
to  avoid  what  displeases.  The  mother  is,  in  a  sense,  in  the 
very  place  of  God  to  her  child,  cultivating  in  it  just  those  senti- 
ments of  love,  respect  and  service,  that  now  develop  toward 
her  and  later  are  transferred  to  a  heavenly  parent,  and  that 
constitute  the  essence  of  religion.  The  parents'  psychic  and 
physical  characters  affect  the  child  far  beyond  the  conscious- 
ness of  either  and  almost  nothing  is  lost  upon  the  latter,  so 
that  parenthood  throughout  is  a  thing  of  unfathomable  respon- 
sibility for  the  more  fundamental  things  that  go  to  make  up 
character.  It  is  always  setting  copy  and  example  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  the  imitative  instinct  in  matters  which  precept,  when 


MORAL    EDUCATION  247 

the  age  for  it  arrives,  cannot  Ijegin  to  equal.  At  this  stage, 
if  at  all,  basal  traits — temperament,  diathesis,  instinct,  pas- 
sions, feelings,  temper,  etc. — are  modifiable.  When  intelli- 
gence dawns,  commands  should  be  few  but  carefully  chosen 
and  inexorable ;  and  prohibitions  must  be  carefully  and  relent- 
lessly followed  up  and  enforced,  for  the  very  opportunity  of 
evasion  tempts  to  falsehood.  Moral  education  needs  an  arti- 
ficial environment  with  natural  penalties  that  follow  immedi- 
ately upon  bad  acts,  for  delay  and  the  remoter  consequences  of 
misconduct  are  too  far  away  for  the  myopic  mind  of  the  young. 
It  always  implies  some  lack  of  respect  for  the  parent  if  the 
child  asks  for  reasons  for  commands,  for  complete  trust  would 
follow  implicitly  even  a  hint.  Hence,  too  much  explanation 
tends  to  diminish  reverence  for  the  personality  of  the  parent 
or  teacher  and  involves  some  degree  of  abdication  of  their 
authority.  Children  easily  become  priggish  in  questioning  for 
reasons ;  and  fond  parents  explain  at  length,  pleased  at  their 
child's  desire  to  know,  and  thinking  he  really  understands, 
when  in  fact  he  is  only  playing  upon  the  parents'  weakness 
and  immensely  flattered  to  be  talked  to  like  an  adult  in  matters 
in  which  in  fact  he  has  only  the  faintest  glimmer  of  intelli- 
gence, though  he  may  possibly  become  an  effective  little  casu- 
ist, and  argumentative  relations  between  him  and  the  parent 
take  the  place  of  plain,  simple  lawgiving.  An  Eastern  proverb 
says,  "If  your  child,  when  you  command  him,  asks  why,  flog 
him,  for  he  insults  your  superior  wisdom  and  judgment  and 
is  wasting  energy  in  discussion  which  should  be  used  in  obedi- 
ence." The  parent's  word  is  law,  is  a  mandate  which  the 
cliild  will  welcome  and  rejoice  to  follow  just  in  proportion  as 
he  respects  and  loves. 

Flogging. — From  this  point  of  view,  physical  castigation 
must  not  be  entirely  dispensed  with,  cither  at  home  or  in  the 
school,  for  boys.  Its  possible  brutality  is  obvious  as  the  rec- 
ords of  the  anticruelty  society  abundantly  show.  But  under 
the  influence  of  female  teachers  and  overtcnder  school  l)oards, 
flogging  should  not  l)e  so  restricted  as  is  now  usual  in  this 
country.  1  have  studied  its  effects  in  JMigland  and  believe 
that,  wisely  adjusted,  it  saves  many  lH)ys  from  I'vil  courses, 
wakes  up  the  overindulged  and  easy  going,  and  tends  to  breed 
a  healthy  spirit  of  manliness,  gives  respect  for  authority  and 


248  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

anticipates  for  youth  the  penalties  that  Hfe  has  in  store  for 
them  later  if  they  go  astray.  In  many  cases  it  should  be  in- 
flicted at  once,  that  the  culprit  may  feel  the  righteous  indigna- 
tion his  fault  arouses  in  kind  but  just  adults.  The  better 
nature  of  some  obstinate,  impudent,  vicious  boys  fairly  cries 
out  for  the  rod,  so  great  is  their  need  of  it.  It  reaches  cases 
which  nothing  else  can  and  saves  many  in  specific  instances  I 
have  collected,  turning  the  whole  tide  of  life  in  the  right  direc- 
tion at  critical  points.  It  is  moral  surgery  applied  to  distorted 
and  perverse  wills.  It  can  help  even  those  now  sometimes 
called  morally  insane,  at  least  in  the  incipient  stages  of  this 
mysterious  and  complicated  type  of  psychic  disease.  For  boys 
in  or  near  the  teens,  it  is  sometimes  the  chief  duty  of  the  father 
to  administer  it ;  but,  alas,  "  Where  are  the  fathers  "  now  in 
the  work  of  education  in  either  school  or  home  ?  A  little  fear 
of  it  is  wholesome  and  goes  a  great  way  and  gives  the  best 
possible  temper  to  love.  In  this  respect  our  moral  pedagogy  is 
too  soft ;  we  must  not  always  be  too  precipitately  and  ardently 
anxious  to  forgive.  Still  less  should  flogging  be  banished 
from  reformatory  institutions  for  the  young.  True,  it  de- 
grades; but  some  need  degradation  of  just  this  kind.  Of 
course,  a  regime  of  kindness  is  often  best  for  those  who  are 
callous  to  too  much  punishment;  but  to  know  that  those  in 
power  cannot  or  dare  not  flog  gives  insubordination  an  unfair 
advantage  and  stimulates  the  rank  growth  of  some  of  the 
worst  faults.  The  earlier  it  is  applied,  the  less  drastic  it  needs 
to  be.  Hence,  the  peculiar  gift  of  discerning  crimes  and  vices 
in  their  tender  bud  is  a  great  desideratum ;  while  even  in  their 
more  developed  stage,  the  rod  may  work  a  wondrous  and  per- 
haps sudden  change  in  older,  hardened  youth.  There  are 
cases  of  this  kind,  though  happily  very  rare,  in  which  the  dura- 
tion and  severity  of  the  castigation  must  be  kept  up  to  a  point 
where  the  heart  of  the  inflictor  rebels,  and  he  would  fain  stop 
in  mercy,  but  simply  must  go  on  till  the  obduracy  of  the  vic- 
tim breaks  either  into  tears  or  promises  of  submission,  begging 
for  cessation,  etc.,  for  only  then  is  the  reformatory  effect 
secured,  while  a  point  less  would  result  in  still  greater  obduracy 
next  time.  Hence,  if  recourse  is  deliberately  had  to  this 
remedy,  it  must  go  on  to  the  end  if  flesh  and  blood  can  endure 
it.    The  boy  who  will  die  rather  than  yield  is  either  physically 


MORAL   EDUCATION  249 

weak  or  morally  insane,  or  perhaps  both ;  he  is  at  any  rate  in- 
docile. This  would  be  my  prescription  for  the  now  rampant 
hoodlumism  and  for  certain  forms  of  moral  obliquity  which 
are  far  less  incorrigible  than  is  usually  thought.  Pleasure  and 
pain  are  the  sovereign  masters  of  life,  and  educators  must 
study  again  more  deeply  the  art  of  administering  the  latter. 

Scolding. — Of  milder  penalties  scolding  may  and  should 
be  made  a  fine  art.  In  point  of  fact,  however,  it  often  degener- 
ates to  nagging,  querulousness,  and  fault-finding,  which  soon 
becomes  ineffective  from  its  very  monotonousness.  But  it 
may  condense  to  a  pithy  epitome  of  the  prohibitive  view  of  the 
whole  line  of  conduct.  Round,  drastic  characterization  of  bad 
conduct,  reflecting  the  way  in  which  when  full  blown  it  will  be 
regarded  by  others,  its  results  later,  and  the  ruthless  revelation 
of  secret  motives,  helps  the  perpetrator  to  see  himself  as  others 
see  him  and  cures  many  symptoms  of  even  hysteria.  It  can  do 
much  for  moral  perversions.  Judicious,  timely,  personal,  and 
sometimes  even  public  censure  is  a  potent  therapeutic  for  the 
moralist.  A  little  just  and  helpful  invective  may  turn  the 
sentiment  of  a  whole  class  or  even  school  if  uttered  by  a  usu- 
ally poised  and  respected  teacher  of  whose  fundamental  kind- 
ness of  heart  all  are  assured.  Effective  moral  influences  are 
not  cold  and  intellectual,  but  hot  from  the  heart.  Why  repress 
truly  righteous  indignation  for  a  child's  misconduct?  The 
soul  of  childhood  has  many  strata  superposed  one  upon  the 
other;  and  while  the  most  conscious  or  superficial  ones  may 
rebel,  the  teacher  who  has  the  support  of  the  deeper  sentiments 
on  his  side  wins  a  great  victory  in  the  inmost  being  of  his 
pupils.  In  fact,  this  is  preaching  at  its  very  best.  If  a  teacher 
prefers  popularity  to  following  the  course  of  his  own  deepest 
convictions,  his  pupils  feel  it,  and  the  real  quality  of  their  re- 
gard suffers  subtle  deterioration,  although  perhaps  neither  he 
nor  they  recognize  the  change.  In  this  important  field  we  need 
special  ethico-pedagogical  studies  by  psychologists.  A  half- 
concealed,  half-revealed  art  of  great  practical  worth  needs  to 
be  wrought  out  to  a  finish  and  put  to  work,  and  practiced  a 
little  in  normal  schools,  even  if  in  a  moot  way.  Rigiit  denun- 
ciation has  an  eloquence  and  even  a  rhetoric  all  its  own. 

Praise. — Its  C(ninteri)art,  jrraise,  should  also  be  lxith  studied 
and  cultivated.    To  praise  as  well  as  to  blame  aright  is  a  high 


250  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

educational  art.  Both  pride  and  shame  are  potent  motives. 
To  select  obscure  personal  acts  that  are  rightly  motivated  and 
to  bring  them  forth  to  the  light  of  day  anonymously,  it  may  be ; 
to  detect  incipient  group  tendencies  that  contain  magnificent 
potencies;  to  keep  close  to  the  thrilling  life  and  interests  of 
classes  and  individuals ;  to  be  ready  with  the  word  fitly  spoken 
and  sometimes  to  interpret  dubious  occurrences  in  a  favorable 
way,  may  turn  the  current  at  critical  moments  and  cause 
psychic  tides  to  set  in  the  right  direction.  This  often  requires 
delicacy  and  a  light,  deft  touch.  It  must  come  straight  from 
the  heart  and  not  seem  for  effect,  as  pup]l^  are  so  prone  to 
regard  all  moral  utterances  of  adults  in  their  behoof.  Eulogy 
and  panegyric  are  very  ancient  and  effective  moral  engines; 
and  Aristotle  thought  the  business  of  the  orator,  at  a  time 
when  the  highest  education  culminated  in  his  art,  was  to  let  no 
great  or  even  good  deed  in  life  go  without  its  due  meed  of 
public  praise.  This  official  commendation  degenerated  only 
when  it  could  be  bought.  Meanwhile  mentors  among  the 
pupils  should  be  secretly  on  watch  for  golden  deeds  and  words 
among  their  mates  for  the  teacher's  benefit,  and  thus  he  should 
be  en  rapport  with  his  pupils'  lives  outside  the  school;  and 
along  with  warning  and  admonition,  should  attain  and  utilize 
methodic  appreciation  of  all  possible  varieties  of  merit.  Thus, 
he  should,  in  a  sense,  stand  to  his  pupils  in  the  place  of  com- 
munities which  will  later  approve  or  disapprove  their  character 
and  conduct.  He  should  be  an  outer,  supplementing  and  de- 
termining the  form  of  a  later,  inner,  conscience. 

Rezvards. — So,  too,  over  against  penalties  should  always 
be  rewards ;  and  they  and  their  effects  should  be  most  carefully 
and  systematically  studied  and  administered.  Prizes,  badges, 
and  dctiirs  of  many  kinds  should  anticipate  the  premiums 
which  the  world  will  bestow  upon  those  who  best  serve  it.  To 
suspect  or  neglect  the  all-pervading  motive  of  rivalry  is  a 
wasteful  and  colossal  blunder.  Athletics  with  the  uncontroll- 
able psychic  enginery  that  supports  them  should  teach  us  this. 
So  far  as  the  best  win  the  best,  this  is  a  moral  world.  It  is  a 
low  motive  to  be  good  for  money  or  for  gifts,  but  this  is  better 
than  not  to  be  good  at  all ;  and  with  growth  the  baser,  naturally 
inclined,  gives  place  to  the  higher  motive,  and  material  are  re- 
placed by  more  spiritual  trophies.    We  recognize  this  principle 


MORAL   EDUCATION  251 

in  intellectual  work  by  scholarships,  marks,  grades,  ranks,  as 
the  French  have  done  and  as  the  Carnegie  prize  for  heroism 
now  does  here ;  while  competition  and  rivalry  are  the  main- 
spring of  business.  It  is  also  the  method  of  nature  in  the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest  and  best,  and  so  in  the  school,  which  is  an 
artificial  epitome  of  life,  we  should  attempt  the  same  impelling 
force. 

Fighting. — In  pondering  these  themes,  I  for  one  have  very 
gradually  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  current  interpreta- 
tions of  Christianity  are  in  some  respects  inadequate  to  the 
present  situation,  Jesus  did  not  turn  His  cheek  to  the  smiter 
in  dealing  with  the  money  changers  in  the  temple  court,  and 
the  Prince  of  Peace  brought  a  sword.  So  I  think  that  in  our 
codes  and  ideals  for  the  young,  while  recognizing  the  virtue  of 
amity  as  paramount,  we  should  not  exclude  but  cultivate  in 
due  season  a  degree  of  the  element  of  righteous  indignation 
and  of  conflict.  The  boy  who  cannot  and  will  not  fight  upon 
occasion  is  a  coward  and  a  milksop.  He  needs  some  experi- 
ence with  the  wager  of  battle  to  toughen  and  ripen  his  moral 
fiber.  To  take  an  unmerited  blow  or  an  insult  meekly  means 
lack  of  virility.  What  would  the  good  lady  teacher  or  mamma 
who  seeks  to  destroy  the  fighting  mettle  in  her  son  think  of  an 
escort  who  would  not  or  could  not  defend  her  from  affront  or 
assault  ?  The  world  admires  the  great  fighters,  and  cultivated 
men  crowd  to  see  even  pugilistic  encounters.  The  sight  of  two 
boys  with  clenched  teeth  and  fists  and  glaring  eyes  pummeliiig 
each  other  may  not  be  edifying  to  ladies,  but  it  always  is  so  to 
crowds,  who  usually  want  them  to  fight  it  out,  provided  they 
do  so  fairly,  and  hope  to  see  the  best  win.  Those  who  inter- 
fere on  such  occasions  are  usually  either  officials  who  must 
follow  orders,  even  if  reluctantly,  or  Christian  peaceablists,  or 
else  friends  of  the  weaker  boy  who  fear  for  him.  But  to  whip 
and  be  whipped  occasionally  in  a  good  cause,  or  perhaps  some- 
times in  a  dubious  one,  is  a  beneficent  experience  for  Ixith 
parties.  The  casualties  are  probably  insignificant  compared 
with  those  of  the  most  popular  of  our  great  academic  athletic 
games.  In  my  school  days  in  the  country,  as  in  many  board- 
ing schools  now,  esj)ecially  in  England,  sucii  battles  were  so 
common  that  each  boy  knew  his  master:  and  one  of  the  best 
moral    experiences    in    my    life    was    in    being    unmercifully 


252  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

thrashed  by  a  better  boy  for  a  real  fault,  and  in  myself  once 
trouncing  a  bully  after  nearly  two  hours  of  rough-and-tumble 
fighting  behind  a  barn,  with  a  group  of  schoolmates  looking 
on.  At  the  end  w'e  were  both  somewhat  gory,  flushed,  tousled 
and  torn,  minus  buttons,  etc. ;  but  I  am  glad  to  say  that  he  was 
most  so.  I  know  that  I  am  a  better,  a  more  courageous,  and 
a  happier  man  for  having  trimmed  that  rowdy  schoolmate, 
who  is  now  station  agent  and  always  tells  me  that  it  was  a 
good  thing  for  him.  I  coincide  with  his  opinion,  and  am 
proud  of  my  part  of  the  transaction,  as  he  declares  he  is  of 
having  been  overcome  by  me.  Thus,  if  a  teacher  had  dragged 
us  apart,  he  w^ould  have  robbed  both  of  a  mutually  pleasing  and 
profitable  experience.  So  I  say  that  good,  gamy  boys  should 
sometimes  fight,  if  they  do  so  fairly,  and  especially  if  there  is 
a  moral  issue  at  stake.  I  often  wonder  whether  the  time  wiH 
not  again  come  when  in  the  armamentarium  of  disciplinary 
methods,  one  will  not  be  for  the  teacher  to  occasionally  con- 
demn boys  to  this  wager  of  personal  encounter,  hand  to  hand, 
and  eye  to  eye,  in  certain  emergencies,  especially  if  he  can 
forecast  victory  upon  the  right  side.  A  principal  in  a  board- 
ing school  told  me  of  several  occasions  where  he  thought  it 
wise  to  settle  disputes  in  this  way,  and  to  say  to  boys  not  old 
or  strong  enough  to  be  in  much  danger  of  permanently  injur- 
ing each  other :  "  I  see  no  other  way  than  for  you  to  fight  it 
out  " ;  and  he  thought  the  morale  of  the  school  was  made  more 
vital  thereby.  He  has  sometimes  had  contestants  use  gloves 
and  observe  rules.  If  some  critic  objects  that  this  is  a  pagan 
note  in  ethics,  I  reply :  Not  necessarily,  and  even  if  it  w-ere  so, 
it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  to  be  condemned  because  of  its 
origin.  Indeed,  this  method  for  adult  contestants,  if  they  must 
fight,  has  been  of  late  earnestly  advocated  as  having  many 
advantages  over  the  use  of  dangerous  weapons  in  duels. 

Revenge. — But  has  revenge  or  vengeance  any  place  in 
moral  pedagogy?  This  is  a  grave  and  more  debatable  ques- 
tion. Steinmetz,  Ree,  Edward  Westermarck  ^  and  others  have 
studied  the  psychology  of  this  instinct,  which  seems  to  be  a 
reaction  of  self-feeling  against  injury.  At  first  it  need  not  take 
a  definite  direction,  and  the  sense  of  inferiority  may  vent  itself 

*The  Essence  of  Revenge.     Mind,  N.  S.,  1898,  vol.  7,  pp.  289-310. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  ^253 

with  a  total  want  of  discrimination.  Many  cases  are  given  of 
outraged  savages  who  kill  animals,  lacerate  their  own  bodies 
at  funerals  in  a  fit  of  revenge  against  fate,  and  injure  the  inno- 
cent; and  yet  even  animals  usually  select  the  right  object  of 
their  vengeance.  It  may  be  that  revenge,  which  is  one  link  in 
a  chain  for  which  resentment  is  the  best  general  name,  is  so 
effective  a  weapon  against  cruelty  that  the  most  revengeful 
tribes  are  most  successful  in  survival.  In  blood  feuds,  there  is 
some  direction  of  vengeance  against  members  of  the  tribe  or 
family  of  the  offender.  Some  codes  forbid  a  man  to  be  sacri- 
ficed for  a  woman  or  for  a  commoner,  and  death  must  be 
avenged  on  one  of  the  same  rank,  sex,  age,  and  maybe  with  the 
same  weapon.  Pride  enters  but  may  not  be  so  dominant  as, 
e.  g.,  Steinmetz  thinks.  It  is  often  a  social  duty  and  may  be 
combined  with  sympathy.  Cutting  off  an  offending  member 
is  not  unknown.  Intentional  injury  is  most  provocative,  and 
even  savages  usually  distinguish  between  culpa  and  dolor. 
We  must  always  distinguish  between  desire  to  inflict  a  coun- 
ter-pain and  that  to  remove  a  cause  of  pain.  This  impulse  is 
very  complex.  Now,  it  is  a  slow,  hard  process  for  the  child  to 
consign  penalty  for  an  injury  done  to  it  to  the  slow,  distant, 
and  uncertain  process  of  law ;  and  for  many  petty  outrages  of 
the  child's  sense  of  justice,  this  is  perhaps  well  and  lays  a 
better  foundation  in  its  soul  for  a  sense  of  equity  later.  I  in- 
cline to  believe  that  revenge  should  be  allowed  a  place,  if  a 
limited  one,  in  the  unwritten  code  of  boyhood,  and  that  it 
should  by  no  means  be  always  and  everywhere  tabooed.  It  can 
sometimes  accomplish  good  as  nothing  else  can  in  scotching 
the  instinct  of  the  bully  that  he  can  do  all  he  will  with  impun- 
ity. Vengeance  is  often  very  cleverly  devised  by  smaller  boys, 
sometimes  with  almost  ideal,  poetic  effectiveness.  It  instills  a 
wholesome  feeling  that  outrages  cannot  be  perpetrated  and 
provoke  no  reaction.  Unlimited  forgiveness  often  goes  with 
cowardice.  "  Do  not  get  satisfaction  by  taking  it  out  of  a 
smaller  boy,  but  get  back  at  the  aggressor  somehow,  .some- 
time," said  a  father  to  his  son  who  had  been  deliberately  rolled 
in  and  plastered  with  mud  by  a  bigger  boy;  and  so  the  son  with 
his  mates  succeeded  in  treating  the  aggressor  with  a  good  dose 
of  his  own  medicine  in  the  same  puddle  next  day,  with  a  few 
extra  daubs  on  the  face  by  way  of  interest,  and  the  scales  of 


254  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

justice  again  swung  even  for  both  parties  and  the  Scriptures 
were  fulfilled :  "  for  with  what  measure  ye  mete,  it  shall  be 
measured  to  you  again."  A  pail  of  foul  water  was  hung  on  a 
gate  and  tipped  by  twine  at  night  upon  a  boy  who  was  called 
out  of  the  house  and  was  soaked.  The  offender  had  no  gate, 
and  a  week  passed,  when  one  night  he  was  called  by  the  gang 
whistle  and  tripped  on  a  wire,  which  tipped  a  bigger  pail  of 
fouler  water  on  him,  suspended  on  poles;  and  again  a  moral 
lesson  was  given  and  received,  while  the  mechanical  wits  of 
the  avengers  were  sharpened.  The  lex  talionis  may  be  a  great 
quickener  of  ingenuity  and  I  ween  has  large  pedagogic  possi- 
bilities in  it,  which  may  be  developed  by  astute  teachers  and 
turned  to  excellent  account  in  some  of  the  exigencies  of  boy 
life. 

What  real  boy  can  be  taught  to  love  his  enemies  without 
danger  of  moral  emasculation  ?  He  must  and  will  hate  them ; 
and  the  moral  teacher  can  really  do  little  more  than  help  make 
sure  that  the  enemies  are  abundantly  worthy  of  enmity,  and 
then  bid  it  Godspeed.  In  a  world  so  full  of  evil  and  ill-doers, 
the  maxim  "  Make  no  enemies  "  is  craven  and  stultifies  con- 
science itself.  Wrath  must  be  in  a  good  cause  and  then  let 
loose  to  do  its  purifying  work.  "  I  will  repay,"  saith  the  Lord, 
but  He  often  needs  human  aid  to  do  so ;  and  why  should  we  be 
loth  to  give  it  when  repayment  is  so  sorely  needed?  Nay, 
what  adult  would  not  meet  the  great  Pacificator  at  death  with 
a  more  open  countenance,  if  he  had  paid  to  the  full  all  his  just 
debts  in  this  regard?  This  I  find  in  the  gentleman's,  though 
not  perhaps  in  the  lady's,  version  of  Christianity.  Those 
brought  up  under  the  influence  of  the  latter  can  never  hate  the 
Lord's  enemies  with  an  exceeding  great  and  bitter  hatred,  and 
to  be  a  good  hater  is  more  ethical  than  to  be  steeped  in  sugary 
benignity  with  uniform  and  monotonous  love  for  all  alike. 

Profanity. — Again,  the  true  Christian  young  gentleman 
never  swears  or  curses  unless  for  adequate  occasion,  but  even 
this  may  arise ;  and  when  it  does  he  must  choose  between  the 
etiquette  of  the  drawing-room  with  ladies  present,  and  the  in- 
stinctive reactions  of  a  man  who  can  rise,  verbally,  at  least,  to 
the  full  height  of  an  extreme  occasion  and  give  things  that  are 
damned  in  their  nature  the  proper  adjectives,  with  no  euphem- 
ism or  circumlocution,  as  George  Washington  did.     He  is  a 


MORAL   EDUCATION  255 

moral  degenerate  who  uses  the  strongest  expletives  on  the 
most  trivial  occasions;  but  not  so  he  who  applies  words  of 
aw  fullest  connotation  to  persons  and  acts  which  nothing  else 
can  fittingly  designate.  While  insisting  for  the  young  upon 
the  adjuration :  "  Swear  not  at  all,"  may  we  not  add,  "  unless 
upon  some  exceptionally  desperate  occasion  where  profanity 
is  no  longer  vulgarity,  as  it  almost  always  is  in  fact,  although 
it  may  become  sublime  and  eloquent."  In  this  sense  swearing 
is  permissible,  but  only  for  great  minds  on  great  occasions. 
Utter  prohibition  of  the  strongest  of  all  strong  languages 
is  fit  only  for  infantile  or  senile  souls,  for  ladies,  clergymen, 
and  professors,  and  other  gown-wearers.  Here  our  baby 
morals  are  so  cabined,  cribbed,  and  confined  that  they  do  not 
fit  youth,  still  less  men,  and  must  be  stretched  and  the  points 
superseded  by  larger  codes. 

Stealing. — Honesty  regarding  property  is  hard  to  teach, 
although  as  Kline  and  France  ^  and  others  have  shown,  a 
sense  of  ownership  is  developed  in  infants  of  very  tender  years. 
To  have  things  set  apart  as  one's  own,  to  do  with  as  one  will,  is 
very  dear  to  the  infant  soul,  for  the  ego  extends  through  all  we 
possess.  Children  are  often  hoarders  and  collectors.-  They 
brook  no  infringement  upon  their  property  rights — perhaps 
not  even  the  touching  of  what  is  theirs  by  others.  Their 
method  of  exchange  is  barter ;  and  slowly,  step  by  step,  as  tl^ 
money  sense  unfolds,  they  come  to  appreciate  the  virtues 
taught  by  children's  banks.  Ownership  is  one  of  the  best 
schools  for  responsibility,  especially  if  of  living  things  as  pets, 
the  care  of  which  is  an  important  moralizing  agency.  But 
money  is  a  great  idealizer  and  quickens  manifold  meditations 
as  to  all  its  possible  uses.  To  accumulate,  lay  by.  and  store  for 
the  future  brings  foresight,  prudence,  economy,  and  thrift.  To 
own  also  teaches  respect  for  others'  possessions ;  and  even 
greed  for  gain  by  those  who  have  much  rarely  prompts  theft. 
Stealing  is  the  vice  of  the  ownerless.  To  have  what  has  cost 
pain,  effort,  and  denial  to  get,  gives  a  just  sense  of  worth  and 
best  teaches  what  real  ownership,  which  .should  always  and 

'  L.  VV.  Kline  and  C  J.  Fnincc,  The  Psychology  of  Ownership.  Vid.  Seni.,  Dec, 
iSc)t),  vol.  6,  pp.  421-470. 

'  Sec  Canih'ne  Frear  Hurk,  The  Collecting  Instinct.  .Asjxv  ts  of  Chikl  Life  and 
Education,  by  G.  Stanley  Hail  and  others,  Boston,  Ginn  &  Co.,  1907,  pp.  205-240. 


256  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

everywhere  represent  service,  means.  Those  who  have  felt  the 
joy  of  possessing  the  well-earned  fruits  of  toil  are  least  liable  to 
rob  others  of  them.  The  studies  of  children's  thefts  show  that 
they  are  often  perpetrated  with  great  ethical  discrimination, 
e.  g.,  against  those  who  have  much,  who  did  not  earn  it,  do 
not  use,  or  acquired  it  unjustly,  are  miserly,  or  themselves 
grasping.  It  is  often  reprisal  committed  to  restore  justice. 
They  would  not  steal  from  a  popular  chil4  or  a  kind  neighbor. 
I  often  close  my  house  for  months  in  the  summer  and  the  boys 
of  the  neighborhood  appropriate  many  bushels  of  fruit  which 
grows  there,  seeming  to  reassert  the  old  rights  of  the  people 
to  the  common,  all  over  my  grounds  and  even  on  the  piazza. 
"  He  has  no  business  to  have  two  houses  w^hen  he  can  use  only 
one  at  a  time,"  one  boy  said.  One  June  I  convened  the  boys 
and  told  them,  as  the  Lord  did  our  first  parents,  that  they 
might  have  all  but  the  fruits  of  one  tree  if  they  would  save 
that  for  me.  They  thought  that  fair  and,  as  there  was  no 
tempting  serpent  among  them,  they  improved  upon  the  con- 
duct of  the  original  Eden  dwellers,  for  in  September  the  fruits 
of  my  forbidden  tree  were  almost  untouched.  They  had  not 
only  refrained  from  it  themselves  but  had  fought  off  other 
boys  not  in  the  pact,  and  I  judge  largely  because  they  thought 
me,  as  I  overheard,  "  a  rather  good  one."  I  hope  I  was  not 
compounding  a  felony. 

Meiim  and  tmim  are  hard  to  learn  without  suiim.  Sav- 
ages have  much  in  common  owned  by  the  tribe,  although  there 
are  always  some  personal  possessions.  Many  things  in  civil- 
ized households  are  simply  "  ours,"  i:  e.,  they  belong  to  the 
family.  It  is  very  white  theft  for  children  to  take  edibles, 
and  not  very  black  for  them  to  take  occasional  small  sums  of 
money  from  their  parents.  In  the  days  of  slavery  the  negroes 
half  owned  their  masters'  goods,  feeling  sometimes  that  things 
were  theirs  because  earned  by  their  labor.  The  world  recog- 
nizes that  the  theft  of  food  to  appease  hunger  or  starvation  is 
the  least  venial  of  all  forms  of  peculation.  And  yet,  of  all  the 
forms  of  petty  larceny  which  is  the  chief  legal  misdemeanor 
of  boys,  edibles  lead.  Hence,  a  good  family  table  removes  a 
strong  temptation  to  steal.  As  a  psychological  instrument  for 
measuring  out  and  punishing  guilt  here,  our  criminal  law  is 
the  most  clumsy  and  wooden  of  devices,  except  where  the 


MORAL   EDUCATION  257 

methods  of  the  juvenile  court  in  dealing  with  all  classes  of 
swipers  has  mitigated  its  evils.  Often  the  chief  charm  of 
thieving  for  boys  is  the  battle  of  wits  involved.  Thus  the 
gamin  frequently  steals  what  he  does  not  particularly  want  in 
order  to  indulge  or  show  off  his  cleverness  in  evading  owners, 
cops,  locks,  and  other  safeguards,  and  may  risk  life  and  limb 
in  quest  of  the  exquisite  charm  of  filching.  A  boy  of  twelve 
who  woke  me  mornings  by  rapping  at  my  door,  once  surprised 
me  by  having  prepared  a  bath  with  every  detail  arranged,  and 
while  I  was  taking  it,  went  out,  climbed  the  eavespout  to  the 
second-story  window  of  my  bedroom  where  my  clothes  lay, 
stole  my  pocketbook,  climbed  down,  and  later  when  I  came 
down  to  breakfast,  gave  it  to  me  explaining  that  he  had  long 
wondered  if  he  could  do  it,  until  he  had  to  try.  Next  day, 
after  pondering  over  my  duty,  I  gave  him  his  reward — a 
quarter  for  his  honesty  and  a  spanking  with  the  back  of  my 
hairbrush  for  his  dishonesty,  though  I  am  not  quite  sure  that 
it  was  the  judgment  of  a  Daniel.  He  doubtless  half  intended 
to  keep  his  plunder,  but  did  not  quite  dare.  Surely  large 
possessions  are  regarded  as  unjust  and  are  themselves  a  chal- 
lenge to  enforce  equalization  for  sharing,  either  by  craft  or  by 
force.  The  Spartans  made  discipline  in  thieving  part  of  their 
education,  to  brighten  the  wits  of  boys  and  sharpen  them  in 
strategy  and  in  daring  to  conceive  and  execute ;  and  not  a  few 
children's  games  are  really  plays  at  theft.  Even  the  casuistry 
of  explanation  and  excuse  upon  detection  provokes  ingenuity. 
Does  not  our  money-mad  age,  where  property  is  God,  tend  to 
make  us  treat  juvenile  peculations  au  grand  serieux,  when 
they  should  often  be  ignored,  winked  at,  or  at  most  only  made 
the  text  of  concise  admonitions,  or  pilloried  with  satire  and 
innuendo?  Fraud  is  the  great  horror  of  all  whose  lives  are 
devoted  to  acquiring  wealth,  and  has  not  this  contributed  to 
magnify  a  type  of  peccadillo  so  germane  to  childhood,  because 
to  trifle  with  money  is  to  some  almost  as  sacrilegious  as  blas- 
phemy against  the  Holy  Ghost?  At  any  rate,  if  I  extenuate 
this  proclivity  of  the  young  too  much,  most  interested  in  this 
subject  do  so  too  little,  so  that  we  may  at  least  aj)peal  to  a 
truth  that  lies  between  us. 

Acquaintance  with   Badness. — The  moral   value  of  good 
companions,  like  good  habits,  cannot  l)e  overestimated.     They 
18 


258  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

influence,  in  many  respects,  far  more  than  parents  and  adults 
can.  Children  are  known  by  the  company  they  keep.  Evil  is 
particularly  contagious  among  the  young,  and  their  guardians 
must  be  always  circumspect  and  vigilant.  This  side  of  the 
matter  we  know  and  feel  and  its  importance  cannot  be  over- 
estimated. But  let  us  not,  on  the  other  hand,  ignore  the  fact 
that  good  children  do,  and  need  to  have  some  personal  ac- 
quaintance with  bad  ones.  As  Sparta  and  Plato  would  show 
the  young  drunken  men  as  w^arnings  against  intemperance,  so 
there  must  be  a  wide  and  variegated  range  of  moral  observa- 
tion to  furnish  an  adequate  basis  for  moral  distinction.  While 
I  would  make  no  concessions  of  this  kind  in  the  realm  of 
sex,  I  would  be  much  more  tolerant  than  is  thought  wise  by 
many,  and  perhaps  most,  of  even  a  little  personal  experience 
occasionally  in  sampling  most  other  kinds  of  badness.  A  boy 
who  has  never,  never  run  wild  with  a  gang,  never  puffed  a 
cigarette,  or  felt  a  little  tobacco  nausea,  never  sipped  liquor 
enough  to  know  its  smell  and  taste  from  soda  water,  knows 
nothing  in  his  own  person  of  what  fire  water  would  do  to  him; 
if  he  never  played  a  game  of  chance  or  gambled  wnth  or  for 
pennies  and  marbles,  never  tried  to  cheat  or  planned  a  runa- 
way, never  once  tasted  the  guilty  exhilaration  of  truancy  on  a 
bright  spring  morning,  but  has  been  a  prize  boy  with  never 
an  absent  or  tardy  mark  for  years ;  one  who  has  never  hurt  an 
animal,  but  has  always  been  ideally  tender  to  dogs,  cats,  frogs, 
etc.,  who  is  chronically  polite  to  girls,  respectful  and  never 
impudent  to  all  his  elders  and  superiors,  never  committed  a 
trespass,  stole  rides,  fished,  if  he  was  a  country  boy,  on  Sun- 
day or  in  posted  brooks,  bathed  in  forbidden,  dangerous  places, 
felt  the  pangs  of  conscience  if  he  found  a  quarter  and  could 
not  find  its  loser,  been  unkempt,  dirty,  soiled,  torn  new  clothes, 
tried  to  bait  or  fool  a  cop,  possibly  been  haled  to  the  police 
court  for  some  prank,  and  there  had  a  mild  taste  of  how  the 
laws  deal  with  those  who  break  them,  had  spells  of  laziness, 
idleness,  day  dreaming,  during  the  years  of  more  rapid  growth, 
wild  spasms  of  joy,  etc.,  when  feeling  in  all  its  rich  diapason 
w^as  awakening,  also  periods  of  moodiness  and  sullenness,  fits 
of  insubordination  when  his  own  will  was  beginning  to  bour- 
geon or  when  the  passion  for  self-assertion  was  felt;  the  boy 
who  has  not  boasted,  swaggered,  bullied  younger  chaps,  had  his 


MORAL   EDUCATION  259 

own  experiences  in  gorging  green  apples  and  other  toothsome 
but  dangerous  and  tabooed  dainties,  when  the  new  adolescent 
appetite  was  adjusting  to  its  changed  dietary;  the  boy  of  the 
avenue  who  never  had  a  point  of  contact  with  any  slum  pal 
or  crony — such  a  youth  cannot  possibly  have  much  vital  knowl- 
edge of  moral  evil  and  good.  In  all  such  things  a  touch,  but 
not  too  much,  is  an  essential  part  of  moral  seasoning  and 
development.  Boys  feel  this  and  are  right.  It  is  the  prohibi- 
tive teaching  of  a  kind  of  Sunday-school  type  of  morality 
reen forced  by  maternal  codes,  and  not  the  boys,  that  need  re- 
construction. Teachers  of  morals  to  the  young  who  do  not 
recognize  all  this  are  simply  dense  or  dishonest;  and  boys  un- 
consciously feel  them  to  be  insincere  and  so  flaunt  them.  They 
have  nearly  all  done  about  all  these  things  and  know  that  they 
have  been  broadened  by  it ;  so  to  teach  otherwise  is  an  affecta- 
tion. It  is  immoral  teaching  of  morality,  a  department  of 
pedagogy  in  which  hypocrisy  culminates. 

Now  the  juvenile  soul  revolts  from  such  repressions, 
craves  and  pants  for  actual  personal  experience,  and  always  has 
tasted  and  will,  like  our  first  parents,  taste  of  forbidden  fruit, 
to  know  good  and  evil  personally.  For  even  girls,  cloistered 
though  they  be,  but  especially  for  open-air  boys,  the  prayer  not 
to  be  led  into  temptation  is  a  fatuitous  and  iridescent  dream. 
We  should  rather  pray  for  all  the  temptation  that  we  can 
successfully  and  triumphantly  overcome,  even  as  some  psycho- 
logical educators  are  now  urging,  for  all  the  individual 
experience  with  sin  which  we  can  completely  react  from  into 
habitual  virtue  with  no  permanent  scar  or  taint  of  body  or  soul. 
Many  theologians  have  taught  that  the  fall  brought  salvation 
and  so  that  both  together  netted  more  good  than  ill  to  the 
race.  The  psychology  of  religion  shows  that  there  is  a  pecul- 
iar Augustinian  type  of  sanctity  illustrated  by  many  a  saint 
since  that  is  due  to  a  reaction  from  even  vicious  lives.  Prob- 
ably this  is  not  the  best  type  of  virtue,  and  very  few  indeed 
would  seriously  prescribe  a  course  of  vice  as  a  i)ropa;deutic  to 
holiness.  Moreover,  the  danger  of  evil  deeds  is  that  they  will 
become  habitual,  so  that  their  victim  cannot  break  away  but 
will  be  dragged  down.  Many  who  have  lived  longest  and 
done  most  of  the  world's  work  were  delicate  when  young; 
some  whose  youth  was  morally  sickly  have  become  doers  of 


26o  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

the  greatest  and  noblest  deeds.  But  such  instances  really 
only  teach  that  there  is  hope  for  those  who  start  wrong — 
they  are  not  examples  to  follow.  When  we  reflect  that 
consciousness  itself  is  caused  and  measured  by  departure 
from  the  norm,  we  realize  that  the  world  has  to  do  much 
hard  thinking  and  investigation  to  rightly  orient  us  in  this 
great  field  of  moral  pedagogy,  beset  as  it  is  with  perils  and 
difficulties  both  practical  and  theoretical. 

Companionship  is  a  potent  agent.  Children,  especially 
boys,  need  a  great  variety  of  associates  near  their  own  age, 
and  without  them  they  cannot  live  out  completely  each  stage 
and  develop  all  its  possibilities.  The  studies  of  only  children 
show  how  maimed  and  narrowed  they  are.  They  spindle  up 
to  maturity  by  short  cuts,  leaving  many  buds  of  possibility 
that  do  not  blossom  in  their  season  but  are  prone  to  unfold 
later  than  they  should;  and  this  causes  traits  of  infantilism 
like  falsetto  notes  in  the  voice.  The  first  meeting  of  toddling 
infants  has  often  been  described.  There  is  intense  self- 
consciousness,  mingled  shyness  and  eagerness  for  further  ac- 
quaintance, giving  or  taking  of  toys,  caresses,  blows  perhaps 
in  turn  according  to  temperament.  Activity  is  very  much 
sustained,  perhaps  causing  sleeplessness  and  nervousness, 
which  children  who  play  only  by  themselves,  and  rarely  with 
abandon  or  excess,  do -not  suffer  from.  This  give-and-take 
method  by  which  children  develop  each  other  is  broadening; 
and  the  education  of  the  street  has  been  found  more  effective 
than  that  of  school  up  to  seven  years,  according  to  the  famous 
British  census.  Our  boys  need  to  know  something  of  bad 
boys  so  as  to  discriminate  between  them  and  choose  their 
friendships.  Boys  in  lower  school  grades  are  often  suddenly 
infected  with  the  contagion  of  various  disagreeable  and  even 
bad  ways;  but  they  overcome  these  contagions,  one  after 
another,  and  slowly  acquire  an  immunity  which  needs  just 
this  experience  to  be  effective.  Here  the  timid  moralist  and 
the  overfond  parent  are  alike  liable  to  err.  Some  exposure  to 
evil  is  as  necessary  for  moral  weal  as  exposure  to  wind  and 
weather  is  for  physical  health.  Animal  spirits  must  have  their 
fling  for  they  are  the  mettle  to  which  growth  will  ultimately 
give  the  finest  temper.  Uniform  goodness  is  often  monoto- 
nous and  wrongdoing  is  far  more  varied;  but  the  best  safe- 


MORAL   EDUCATION  261 

guard  for  most  of  these  ills  is  inoculation  with  attenuated 
virus.  I  do  not  forget  the  immense  evil  that  one  really  bad 
boy  can  do  in  a  whole  neighborhood.  I  have  records  of  new 
boys  who  have  lowered  the  whole  moral  tone  of  their  environ- 
ment for  a  time  more  than  parents  and  teachers  combined 
could  raise  it. 

The  susceptibility  of  certain  ages  to  vileness  and  the  ease 
with  which  certain  bad  things  are  learned,  which  can  never  be 
entirely  unlearned,  is  amazing.  The  worst  of  the  evils  here  in 
mind  is  where  small  and  innocent  boys  just  before  the  physio- 
logical age  are  exposed  to  vile  ones  who  have  just  passed  it. 
The  latter  seem  by  a  perfectly  diabolical  instinct  passionately 
disposed  to  infect  their  juniors  with  the  worst  that  is  in  them. 
Nevertheless,  while  we  should  reduce  these  dangers  to  a  mini- 
mum, we  must  not  eliminate  boys  from  all  association  with 
those  older  than  themselves.  This  is  a  very  grave  defect  of  our 
graded  school  system.  In  the  old,  ungraded  days  the  boys 
heard  recitations  of  higher  classes  and  got  much  from  them, 
and  profited  largely  from  associations  with  those  older  and 
younger.  Now  they  are  cut  off  from  all  these  sources  of  moral 
and  intellectual  stimulation. 

Again,  there  is  a  time  from  six  or  eight  to  twelve  when 
boys  care  almost  nothing  for  grown  ups,  living  out  their  own 
life;  but  one  of  the  most  emphatic  changes  in  the  early  teens 
is  an  often  marked  new  interest  in  grown  ups  and  in  all  the 
activities  and  ideals  of  maturity.  Now  children  are  exceed- 
ingly susceptible  to  their  elders ;  but  all  this  is  lost  to-day  for 
the  schoollx)y  follows  leaders  of  his  own  age  who  become 
bosses  and  he  henchman ;  and  thus  the  natural  domination  of 
maturer  years  is  replaced  by  the  gang  instinct.  The  passion 
for  meeting  and  just  being  together  and  having  a  good  time, 
uncontrolled  by  adults,  of  merging  one's  individuality  with 
that  of  others,  is  very  strong  and  dominant  near  the  beginning 
of  the  teens,  and  associations,  if  unfit,  bring  new  standards  of 
conduct  and  make  parents  and  teachers  suddenly  realize  that 
they  are  utterly  helpless.  Workers  with  boys  can  now  do 
little  but  giu'de  their  companionships.  In  their  huts  and  hunk- 
ies,  the  lx*st  fighter  is  usually  the  leader  of  the  gang,  which  has 
a  sense  of  ownership;  but  these  organizations  do  cultivate 
loyalty  so  that  treachery  in   "  snitching  "  or  "  peaching  "  is 


262  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

very  rare.  Certainly  a  little  work  by  boys  is  very  much  better 
than  much  work  for  them  while  these  rather  crude  semisavage 
virtues  are  evolving  which  are  the  basis  of  social  morality. 

Studies  of  the  most  popular  boy  show  that  the  favorite 
traits  their  mates  prefer  are  jollity,  good  temper,  and  exuber- 
ance of  spirit.  The  leader  must  be  brimful  of  fun,  not  easily 
mad,  fair,  just,  fond  of  play;  while  health  and  scholarship  are 
rarely  mentioned.  Some  boys  want  two  chums  of  opposite 
characteristics.  A  single  friend  or  a  number  of  the  same  type, 
which  is  the  ideal  of  the  Greek-letter  college  fraternities,  is 
dwarfing.  The  passion  for  chums  has  become  very  strong  as 
early  as  ten ;  but  the  ideal  chum  is  rarely  of  the  same  age,  but 
either  older,  for  protection,  counsel,  and  inspiration,  or  else 
younger,  to  be  bullied  and  to  serve.  The  power  of  mere 
proximity  diminishes  with  age,  and  affinity  with  conscious 
selection  comes  in  later.  Real  friendships  among  boys  will 
survive  a  great  deal  of  quarreling  and  even  abuse;  and 
methods  for  settling  disputes  are  sometimes  quite  elaborate. 
Every  boy  certainly  ought  to  have  one  or  more  friends  that 
are  complementary  or  opposites  to  himself  in  temper,  disposi- 
tion, ideals,  etc.  Young  children  are  democratic  and  make  no 
class  distinctions  until  these  are  suggested  by  adults.  Some 
now  think  that  rich  and  cultivated  families  should  sometimes 
invite  to  their  homes  the  children  of  the  poor,  in  order  that 
their  own  may  associate  with  them.  Children  of  rich  parents 
who  associate  only  with  others  of  their  own  kind  are  peculiar- 
ly liable  to  suffer  from  proximity,  artificiality,  priggishness,  to 
develop  early  affectations,  and  become  indocile,  unmannerly, 
irresponsible  and  disagreeable.  All  such  children  should  have 
a  circle  of  friends  of  a  class  very  distinct  from  their  own,  and 
should  visit  their  homes  and  entertain  them.  This  of  itself 
would  tend  toward  not  only  new  manners  but  a  taste  for 
simplicity  as  opposed  to  mere  costliness,  and  finally  for  a  love 
of  the  genuine  in  place  of  the  artificial. 

Even  imaginary  companions  often  have  moral  significance. 
It  is  well  known  that  many  children,  especially  if  much  alone, 
instinctively  seek  to  rescue  themselves  from  the  invincible 
stupidity  that  results  from  isolation  by  inventing  personages 
that  may  come  to  be  very  real,  with  definite  features,  traits,  and 
histories  richly  dight  with  circumstance,  incident,  and  detail, 


MORAL   EDUCATION  263 

and  that  these  fancied  friends  may  persist  for  years.  They 
are  played,  slept,  talked  with,  sit  at  table,  though  they  are 
never  seen,  for  they  are  of  the  stuff  that  dreams  are  made  of. 
Some  now  hold  that  children  should  be  encouraged  to  con- 
struct imaginary  friends ;  and  all  agree  that,  where  they  exist, 
the  parents  should  help  to  shape  their  character,  for  this  often 
exerts  an  important  influence  upon  the  real  child  beyond  mere- 
ly stimulating  its  fancy.  It  is  pathetic  that  the  passion  for 
mates  is  so  strong  that  the  child  who  lacks  them  has  to  pro- 
ceed to  create  them. 

Truancy. — The  Chicago  Conference  on  Truancy  in  1906 
was  a  great  surprise.  It  had  long  been  assumed  that  the  schools 
were  so  good  that  it  was  perversity,  if  not  depravity,  on  the 
part  of  children  not  to  attend  them.  This  our  truant  laws, 
officers,  and  schools  assumed.  But  here  speaker  after  speaker 
declared  in  substance  that  it  was  by  no  means  proven  that  the 
normal  child  ought  to  go  to  school,  or  that  it  did  not  have  a 
right  to  go  wherever  it  liked,  barring  danger  and  vice.  So- 
called  truants  often  go  where  they  learn  far  more  than  they 
could  learn  at  school,  which  seems  very  arid,  constrained,  and 
dismal  as  compared  with  life  outside.  The  educational  value 
of  the  dump,  garbage  heap,  docks,  back  alleys,  swimming 
pool,  hockey,  marbles,  and  now  the  playgrounds,  as  successful 
rivals  of  the  school  for  the  boys'  affections  and  interests,  were 
dwelt  upon.  Lads  with  ginger  in  them  who  love  a  rumpus, 
who  need  to  run  wild  a  little,  and  whom  proper  people  think 
depraved  and  lost,  whom  weak  and  unreasoning  parents  call 
wayward  and  incorrigible,  at  this  conference  received  apprecia- 
tive, not  to  say  sympathetic,  consideration.  Neglected  children 
are  not  necessarily  bad ;  and  probation,  jurisdiction  of  the 
court,  and  even  custody  should  not  brand  the  ciiild  with  in- 
delible disgrace,  for  these  are  only  forms  of  guardianship. 
Probably  the  whole  boy  never  goes  to  school :  at  best  a  major- 
ity, and  usually  only  a  minority  of  his  powers  are  represented 
there;  his  zests,  his  imagination,  his  wishes  are  outside.  Thus, 
he  is  more  or  less  of  a  prisoner  there,  constrained  against  his 
will.  What  can  tiie  monotonous,  stupid  drill  in  the  three  R's 
offer  that  begins  to  compare  in  attractiveness  to  life?  Is  it  the 
duty  of  all  parents  to  send  all  children  to  the  school  as  now 
constituted  ?     I  doubt  it  more  and  more.     Compulsory  educa- 


264  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

tion  never  can  be  true  education  but  will  always  ring  hollow 
and  false. 

As  to  responsibility^  the  very  essence  of  a  happy  childhood 
is  carelessness.  It  must  be  cared  for.  To  be  held  accountable 
for  too  little,  to  be  too  much  looked  out  for  by  others,  to 
have  all  done  for  them,  and  little  by  them,  to  be  shielded 
from  the  consequences  of  their  errors  and  neglects — makes 
for  selfishness  and  brings  later  the  chronic  discontent  that 
lays  too  heavy  demands  on  the  environment  and  on  life  con- 
ditions, and  too  little  on  self;  that  seeks  rights  without 
paying  their  price  in  duties.  Such  children  are  liable  to 
be  exacting  and  querulous.  In  industrial  positions  they 
often  fail  because  they  cannot  be  made  to  feel  their  account- 
ability or  their  relations  to  the  business,  to  others,  to  the 
whole.  With  possessions  should  always  go  responsibility 
for  their  care ;  hence  the  need  of  ownership.  Those  who  have 
nothing  they  can  call  their  own  are  prone  to  lack  responsibil- 
ity. Membership  in  an  organization,  even  a  gang,  teaches  co- 
operative obligations  to  it.  In  this,  the  isolated  child  is  prone 
to  be  deficient.  So,  too,  the  child  who  has  no  home  duties  or 
too  much  help  or  service  there,  is  lacking  in  this  respect.  The 
child,  then,  must  feel  that  it  owes  something  definite  to  each 
member  of  its  family,  playmates,  teacher,  school,  as  well  as  to 
the  community.  On  the  other  hand,  too  much  or  too  early 
responsibility  is  crushing,  and  robs  childhood  of  its  chief  joy, 
namely — freedom  from  responsibility ;  tends  to  bring  maturity 
before  its  time,  and  may  develop  an  oppressive  sense  of  anxiety 
and  worry  that  lays  the  basis  for  various  repressive  neuroses 
later.  As  in  so  many  other  departments  of  moral  education, 
all  here,  too,  depends  upon  individual  adjustments.  The  same 
burden  of  accountability  that  would  overwhelm  some  children 
is  the  crying  need  of  others.  Thus  a  moral  survey  of  the  life 
of  each  should  be  made  the  basis  of  personal  prescription. 
Mass  training  is  nowhere  so  perilous  as  in  the  ethical  domain. 

Children  should  honor  and  respect  their  parents  as  the 
decalogue  requires.  They  should  do  this  just  so  far  as  their 
parents  deserve  it.     But  if  the  father  never  thought  of  their 

'  See  a  good  discussion  by  Kurt  Steinitz.  Der  Verantwortlichkeitsgedanke  im 
19.  Jahrhundert.  Zeitschrift  fiir  pad.  Psy.  imd  Pathologic,  1901,  vol.  3,  pp.  363- 
394. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  265 

procreation  and  violated  the  best  conditions  for  this  ofifice  and 
sought  only  excessive  indulgence  for  himself  with  deteriorated 
or  depleted  vital  fluids,  if  he  was  intoxicated,  too  old,  infected, 
or  exhausted,  surely  he  is  not  to  be  revered  for  this  defective 
physical  paternity.  Perhaps,  rather,  he  is  worthier  of  curses. 
The  mother,  too,  perhaps  did  not  enter  upon  her  harder  offices 
of  maternity  in  a  fit  condition  or  with  knowledge,  or  did  so 
perhaps  with  reluctance  or  even  aversion.  In  nursing,  clothing, 
and  caring  for  her  infant  she  may  have  been  driven  only  by  a 
blind  animal  instinct  or  have  performed  these  duties  as  a  father 
who  does  the  minimum  that  social  decency  or  the  law  requires. 
If,  instead  of  personal  ministration  by  parents,  children  are 
turned  over  to  others  and  less  and  less  is  done  for  them  in  the 
home,  the  debt  of  gratitude  on  them  is  less.  Is  it  strange  that 
under  these  conditions  their  respect  for  parents  declines  ?  Are 
we  worthy  of  the  respect  we  demand  of  them?  The  same 
question  may  be  addressed  to  mechanical  hireling  teachers. 
By  what  right  do  adults  claim  the  reverence  of  the  young,  or 
what  is  their  indebtedness  to  municipalities  with  scant  or  no 
playgrounds,  that  have  provided  no  baths  or  swimming  facili- 
ties, no  parks,  and  only  a  minimum  of  indifferent  schools,  and 
little  other  provision  for  child  welfare?  What  claims  have 
they  upon  the  local  civic  pride  and  loyalty  of  those  reared 
under  conditions  they  provide?  The  same  applies  to  the 
nation  that  demands  patriotism  and  perhaps  the  supreme 
sacrifice  of  life.  Is  our  fatherland  intrinsically  the  best  and 
does  it  do  most  for  its  subjects?  If  authority  is  not  based  on 
virtue,  the  obedience  of  children  is  simply  yielding  to  the  will 
of  the  stronger  because  they  are  the  weaker  and  not  to  superior 
wisdom  or  real  moral  ascendency,  which  should  go  with  age. 
Recent  and  very  significant  studies  show  that  children,  at  a 
certain  stage  of  their  development  when  they  are  most  acutely 
conscious  of  the  disparity  between  what  they  would  be  and  do 
and  what  they  can,  are  only  too  prone  to  wonder  in  their  day 
dreams  if  their  parents  really  did  all  their  duty  by  them  and 
perhaps  to  hold  them  co-responsible  for  their  own  shortcom- 
ings, just  as  at  another  stage  when  children's  ideals  arc  high- 
est and  seem  most  realizable,  they  often  wonder  whether  they 
are  really  the  children  of  their  parents  and  imagine  that  they 
have  had  a  greater,  perhaps  unknown  father.     hOr  very  young 


266  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

children  the  parents  are  the  supreme  ideals ;  but  later  they  are 
weighed  and  compared  with  others  and  judged  in  the  end  more 
or  less  justly ;  and  while  nothing  can  exceed  the  reverence  and 
devotion  the  best  parents  merit,  no  execrations  are  too  bitter 
for  the  worst,  and  the  child's  curse  on  its  parents,  if  merited, 
is  a  fearful  thing. 

Bravery. — France  has  taken  much  pains  to  cultivate  cour- 
age among  children,  and  there  are  societies  for  giving  them 
decorations  for  meritorious  deeds.  At  a  recent  conference 
Maurice  Bloch  ^  describes  in  a  vivid  way  many  of  these  acts 
of  heroism,  some  of  them  by  children  of  eight  or  ten  years, 
and  also  speaks  of  the  various  prizes  and  decorations,  public 
and  private,  given  to  boys  and  girls  who  have  distinguished 
themselves  by  bravery.  One  who  was  a  soldier  at  eleven  wrote 
a  letter  to  his  father  before  an  operation  which  ended  in  death 
that  was  a  model  of  mingled  heroism  and  affection.  One  part 
of  a  battalion  during  the  revolution  was  composed  of  lads  of 
from  thirteen  to  fourteen.  Several  great  generals  are  named 
who  have  been  soldiers  and  under  fire  at  ten  and  eleven.  Not 
a  few  of  the  prizes  for  courage  are  given  to  those  who  save 
other  children  from  drowning  or  from  fire  at  great  risk  of 
their  own  lives.  A  few  have  fought  mad  dogs  to  save  others. 
At  least  two  of  these,  Pasteur  honored.  These  children  were 
not  ignorant  of  danger  like  those  of  more  tender  age  who  have 
been  known  to  rush  across  the  street  w^here  carriages  were 
thickest  or  even  before  a  fire  of  mitrailleuse  in  search  of  a  lost 
ball.  The  history  of  France  back  to  the  Crusades  appears  to 
abound  in  illustrations  of  juvenile  heroism.  Our  age  is  too 
tender  to  sanction  the  action  of  a  group  of  French  boys  who 
commemorated  the  execution  of  a  comrade  by  the  Prussians  by 
visiting  the  scene  of  his  death  soon  after  and  each  taking  a 
most  solemn  oath  to  die  like  him  at  any  time  their  country 
needed  their  lives.  Nor  should  we  agree  with  a  Russian  writer 
who  would  have  children  of  seven  learn  to  descend  on  ropes 
from  high  roofs,  ride  horses,  throw  the  lasso,  scale  high  walls 
and  buildings  so  that  they  might  help  effectively  in  time  of 
fire,  and  get  the  discipline  that  comes  from  being  accustomed 

'  Le  Courage  chez  I'Enfant;  conference  faite  au  Petit  Palais,  Exposition  de 
I'enfance  le  7  Juin,  1901.  Paris,  Picard,  1901,  29  p.  (Bibliotheque  d'lnstruction 
et  d'Education  du  Citoyen.) 


MORAL   EDUCATION  267 

to  danger.  Patriotism  is  best  taught  by  making  little  folk 
great  by  the  lessons  of  heroism. 

The  sense  of  justice  is  a  product  of  slow  evolution  in  the 
race  and  in  the  individual.  It  is  based  on  sympathy  and  the 
power  of  putting  yourself  in  another's  place,  or  seeing  our- 
selves as  others  see  us.  Plato  thought  it  capable  of  becoming 
such  a  passion  that  the  wise  man  fairly  longed  and  lusted  for 
punishment,  if  he  had  been  guilty  of  any  infraction  of  its  laws, 
not  so  much  because  a  penalty  fitting  the  crime  was  necessary 
to  bring  home  a  realization  of  demerit,  but  because  the  scales 
of  some  more  absolute  or  perhaps  divine  justice  were  out  of 
poise  and  must  be  made  true  again.  There  is  a  deep  sense  in 
the -race  that  sin  must  be  expiated  by  suffering,  and  if  it  is  not, 
that  grave  dangers  impend  not  only  to  the  transgressor  but  to 
the  community.  Justice  is  blindfolded  because  it  is  no  respecter 
of  persons.  Criminology  has  always  distinguished  between 
mortal  offenses  punishable  by  de^th  and  less  degrees  of  guilt. 
The  psychology  of  the  folk  soul  which  has  evolved  transcen- 
dental rewards  and  penalties  and  devised  modes  of  atonement 
and  expiation  by  vicarious  sacrifices  shows  the  sweep  and 
grandeur  of  this  potent  group  of  ethical  instincts  and  their 
corrective  originality.  It  is  the  sense  of  justice  in  the  soul  that 
brings  a  feeling  of  impending  wrath.  It  thus  brings  fear, 
and  in  ordeals  and  conflicts  makes  those  who  are  guilty  feeble 
and  fallible,  so  that  these  superstitious  tests  of  guilt  or  inno- 
cence are  often  very  effective.  How  to  escape  the  visitations 
of  evil  due  to  misconduct  has  often  been  a  great  and  absorbing 
theme  of  thought  with  primitive  man,  and  many  forms  of 
solution  are  seen  in  which  various  substitutes  and  vicarious 
victims  have  been  brought  forward.  This  is  the  root  of  tiie 
very  idea  of  sacrifice. 

For  the  young  child  the  law  of  justice  should  not  l)e  keyed 
too  high.  He  must  not  be  eternally  under  a  sense  of  deserving 
evil,  and  retribution  mu.st  be  mild.  Only  at  adolescence  does 
he  feel  a  sense  slowly  broaden  and  deepen  toward  absolute 
standards,  until  there  is  at  least  a  glimpse  of  transcendental 
merits  and  demerits,  as  social  and  divine  retaliation  is  sensed. 
The  psychic  roots  of  optimism  and  pessimism  strike  deep  into 
the  sense  of  justice.  This  is  a  moral  world  if  good  and  evil 
alike  get  their  deserts ;  but  because  this  does  not  always  ajjpear 


268  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

to  be  the  case,  heaven  and  hell  are  needed  to  bolster  up  the 
faith  that  this  is  a  good  world.  Laws,  tribunals,  tragedy, 
novels,  too,  are  efifective  in  direct  proportion  as  evil  gets  its 
deserts  and  good  is  rewarded.  God  would  be  dethroned  if 
He  did  not  bring  this  about. 

How,  then,  is  this  corner  stone  of  the  moral  temple  to  be 
laid  in  the  souls  of  the  young?  It  begins  in  the  sense  of  fair 
play  with  such  rules  of  the  game  as  insure  victory  to  the 
best  man  or  team.  Thus  cheap  and  unsportsmanlike  tricks, 
secret  advantages,  directly  undermine  this  bulwark  of  ethics. 
An  environment  so  organized  that  each  gets  what  he  earns — 
no  more,  no  less — whether  in  the  way  of  respect  or  material 
advantage  is  the  vital  air  in  which  this  sentiment  grows.  -AH 
moral  education  is  a  probation  system  in  which  just  this  occurs 
promptly  and  pitilessly  without  fear  or  effort.  The  education 
of  the  sense  of  justice  culminates  in  the  sublime  conviction 
that  in  this  world  nothing  really  evil  or  no  failure  can  befall  a 
truly  good  man;  and  conversely,  that  nothing  that  is  really 
good,  that  no  true  success,,  can  ever  come  to  a  bad  one. 

Now,  what  really  makes  this  a  moral  world  in  which  this 
actually  does  occur?  The  chief  factor  in  the  process  is  the  be- 
lief that  it  is  so.  If  we  are  firmly  convinced  that  honesty  and 
virtue  pay  in  the  end  and  that  vice  and  crime  fail,  they  will  do 
so.  The  contestant  in  a  bad  cause  is  only  half-hearted  and  he 
who  fights  in  a  good  one  feels  that  he  has  the  moral  cosmos 
at  his  back  and  so,  though  he  be  w^eak,  triumphs.  A  bad  con- 
science indeed  makes  cowards  and  weaklings.  Thus  there  is 
no  moral  progress  unless  we  have  faith  that  the  eternal  powers 
are  on  the  side  of  right.  Thus  I  believe  there  is  nothing  that  is 
teachable  in  morals  quite  so  important  as  that  there  is  a  power 
that  makes  for  righteousness  and  against  unrighteousness  at 
the  helm  of  the  universe,  and  that,  although  wrongdoing  may 
flourish  for  a  season,  sooner  or  later,  in  some  way  or  other,  it 
meets  its  deserts.  If  all  men  steadfastly  believed  that  all  sins 
would  always  be  found  out  or  meet  their  condign  rewards,  it 
would  always  be  so  in  fact,  for  the  vile  would  either  confess  or 
make  reparation,  the  villain  would  find  the  furies  unchained  in 
his  soul.  The  man  who  knows  his  cause  to  be  unjust,  fights  in 
its  defense  with  dull  weapons  and  feeble  muscles  compared 
with  him  who  is  thrice  armed  because  his  quarrel  is  just. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  269 

Justice  is  thus  the  muse  of  positive  moral  education.  All 
umpires,  school  juries,  students,  and  committees  on  g-overn- 
ment  should  supremely  respect  it.  By  executing  righteous 
vengeance  upon  others,  we  learn  a  wholesome  fear  that,  if  we 
are  prompted  to  injustice,  we  shall  expose  ourselves  to  the 
same  vengeance.  There  is  a  limit  to  asking  and  accepting 
pardon  for  offenses ;  and  is  it  manly  or  womanly  to  let  another, 
though  it  be  a  superior  or  divine  friend,  bear  the  consequences 
of  our  sin,  while  we  go  scot  free?  Is  this  psychologically  pos- 
sible or  morally  permissible?  Is  it  not  rather  degenerative  in 
its  effects  upon  the  moral  sense  ?  It  is  here  that  theology  not 
Christ,  the  Commentators,  but  not  the  Bible,  in  evolving  the 
theory  of  the  vicarious  atonement  have  wrought  incalculable 
harm  to  the  moral  sense;  and  it  is  here  that  a  great  work  of 
clearing  up  and  restoration  needs  to  be  done.  If  I  may  sin 
with  impunity  because  a  voluntary  burden  bearer  is  always  at 
hand  eager  to  take  the  consequences  of  my  sin,  then  I  may  sin 
again  with  impunity.  It  is  no  less  cowardly  and  dishonorable 
in  me  to  let  him  be  the  victim  of  my  sin  than  if  he  were  a 
weaker  brother.  Impunity  is  perilously  akin  to  indulgence. 
Absolution  can  only  abate  ingrained  effects  of  sin  and  this  is 
much.  But  to  transfer  pains  and  penalties  from  the  penitent 
to  Christ  is  effective  precisely  in  the  same  way  that  conjuring 
diseases  into  an  animal,  plant  or  charmed  amulet  is.  The 
theory  of  such  transference  is  true  only  in  so  far  as  it  works 
well ;  and  the  principle  is  the  same  as  that  of  cures  by  a  rabbit's 
foot. 

Thus  the  pedagogy  of  justice  and  responsibility  is  muddled, 
and  moral  endeavors  are  made  of  no  avail  by  the  prevalence  of 
such  views.  The  very  basis  of  moral  inculcation  is  that,  if  we 
sin,  we  suffer  in  our  own  person  and  pain  helps  us  to  right 
ourselves  again.  Had  the  dear,  heavenly  Father  ever  really 
provided  any  such  scheme,  or  really  offered  Himself  as  a  scape- 
goat for  man's  iniquities,  He  would  have  done  even  worse  than 
overfond  parents  who  spoil  their  children,  by  providing 
immunities.  He  would  have  sold  us  indulgence  for  sin  and  at 
very  cheap  rates.  Years  of  error  are  atoned  for  by  a  prayer 
or  a  single  act  of  faith.  This  is  not  in  the  nature  of  a  moral 
world,  but  perverts  it.  This  doctrine  is  the  unpardonable  sin 
of  tlie  church  against  both  true  religion  and  morals.    The  only 


27©  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

justification  for  it  is  found  in  the  fact  that  human  nature  is  so 
richly  endowed  and  so  resourceful  that  it  can  right  itself  after 
a  surprisingly  prolonged  course  of  error  and  even  dissipation 
by  means  of  the  residual  vital  energy  that  remains  in  it ;  and 
not  only  the  race  but  individuals  often  need  to  be  reminded 
that  the  momentum  of  evolution  is  great,  manifold,  and  not 
easily  exhausted. 

Teaching  Morals  in  the  Topics  of  the  Curricitlmn. — To 
insist  that  every  lesson  in  every  subject  should  be  primarily  a 
lesson  in  morals  does  not  imply  any  undue  subordination  of 
the  subject  matter  of  the  different  branches  but  only  a  larger 
and  deeper  appreciation  of  the  facts  taught.  It  gives  them  a 
higher  value.  Thus  wherever  a  pupil  is  made  to  feel  a  deeper 
interest,  to  abandon  indifference  and  idleness,  and  to  put  more 
energy  into  any  subject,  he  is  by  that  very  fact  made  morally 
better.  History  is  ethics  teaching  by  example.  Its  great  char- 
acters and  achievements  fire  the  aspirations  of  boys  in  every 
hero-worshiping  age.  Its  widened  horizon  tends  to  shame 
littleness,  teaches  to  tell  the  truth  and  how  difficult  this  is  to  do, 
impresses  toleration,  rebukes  undue  partisanship.  History  is 
the  great  judge  and  vindicator  of  the  ways  of  God  to  man.  So 
literature  is  constantly  becoming,  at  least  indirectly,  a  series 
of  lessons  in  right  conduct,  sentiments  and  ideas.  Nature 
study  teaches  to  think  independently  and  exactly,  gives  sym- 
pathy with  plants  and  animals,  interests  in  the  general  laws  of 
life  and  heredity,  cultivates  judgment  and  critical  discrimina- 
tion, and  gives  a  deeper  sense  of  all-pervading  law.  Domestic 
arts  enhance  the  sense  of  responsibility  for  all  that  pertains  to 
family  management,  and  magnifies  woman's  sense  of  her  own 
function  in  the  world  and  shows  her  how  to  be  more  effective 
and  escape  drudgery  and  ill  health. 

Industrial  training  part  of  the  day  has  in  several  authentic 
cases  actually  increased  the  rate  of  intellectual  progress  of 
school  children,  despite  the  lessened  time  devoted  to  studies. 
We  have  now  much  literature  upon  this  subject  and  very  few 
cases  show  a  retardation  of  time  spent  on  studies.  From  six  or 
seven  to  fourteen  or  fifteen  is  the  nascent  period  for  acquiring 
manual  dexterity  and  skill,  and  if  this  is  neglected  during  its 
season  it  can  rarely  or  never  be  made  up  later.  Pride  and 
interest  in  achievement  and  in  products  of  earnest,  honest  toil 


MORAL   EDUCATION  271 

are  potent  factors  in  character  building.  Hence  added  to  the 
economic  and  vocational,  a  moral  value  is  also  more  and  more 
apparent  in  industrial  education.  Thrift  rightly  taught  has  a 
mqral  as  well  as  a  social  value  not  yet  sufficiently  recognized. 
Boys  who  are  taught  what  to  do  with  their  earnings,  to  keep 
accounts,  to  feel  the  difference  between  surplus  and  deficit, 
and  what  solvency  and  credit  mean,  who  have  a  little  savings 
in  a  bank  or  elsewhere,  feel  augmented  self-respect,  widened 
nuntal  interests,  more  responsibility,  foresight  and  power  of 
self-denial.  Thus  money,  ownership,  possessions,  the  psy- 
chology of  which  is  now  being  developed,  are  seen  to  have  very 
high  promise  and  potency  of  ethical  development  in  them. 
The  sense  of  having  really  earned  money  by  actual  services 
rendered  gives  a  wholesome  sense  of  worth  and  of  member- 
ship in  a  great  economic  system  which  dominates  modern  life. 
I  would  have  the  contents  of  every  reader  in  the  grades 
and  all  the  English  literature  studied  in  the  high  school 
chosen  primarily  with  reference  to  moral  values  and,  ignoring 
here  the  dangerous  principle  of  art  for  art's  sake,  place  all 
stylistic  qualities  second  to  ethical  values.  In  view  of  the  woe- 
ful and  growing  ignorance  of  Scripture,  I  would  have  Bible 
stories  and  selections  from  both  Testaments  taught  as  litera- 
ture, because  the  alternative — this  or  ignorance  of  the  Bible — 
is  pressed  upon  us  as  more  and  more  imperative.  Tiie  masterly 
Saxon  directness,  simplicity,  and  virility  of  the  English  Bible 
is  the  best  pattern  on  which  to  fashion  style,  and  its  moral 
uplift  is  independent  of  all  supernal  elements.  So,  too,  I 
would  lay  the  other  great  ethnic  Bibles  under  contribution,  with 
selections  primarily  for  moral  ends  from  the  literature  of 
Confucianism,  Brahminism,  Buddhism,  Mohammedism,  with 
illustrations  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  and  Scandinavian  re- 
ligions at  their  best,  which  in  fact  are  to-day  even  much  better 
known  by  high-school  graduates  than  the  Bible.  These,  it 
must  be  frankly  said,  contain  some  elements  of  real  value  to 
youth  which  our  Scripture  lacks,  for  even  it  cannot  do  every- 
thing and  needs  to  be  supplemented.  Thirdly.  I  would  have 
all  English  literature  and  history  also  made  the  basis  of  a 
careful,  well-planned,  cooperative,  moral  survey  that  should 
select  the  best  elements,  epitomized,  condensed,  and  adjusted 
to  childhood,  by  the  story-telling  and  '*  give-back  "  methods 


272  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

up  the  grades  described  elsewhere.  There  is  material  enough 
in  English,  and  translated  into  it,  to  make  a  secular  Bible  of 
the  type  Mr.  Heather  Bigg  had  in  mind,  of  immense  moral 
power.  These  things — all  the  way  from  the  old  animal  f^le 
up  to  the  loftiest  achievements  of  the  sublimest  men,  together 
with  proverbs,  a  few  well-chosen  hymns,  and  poems  of  virtue 
properly  grouped  in  a  chrestomathy — should  constitute  the 
essential  factor  in  English  in  place  of  the  wretched  word- 
cramming  analysis  of  texts  which  focuses  attention  on  form 
rather  than  on  content,  which  has  brought  instruction  in  this 
field  to  its  present  condition  of  decadence. 

Again,  the  various  vocational,  mdustrial  and  reformatory 
schools,  houses  of  detention,  homes,  and  other  institutions  pro- 
vided for  boys  who  loath  and  hate  the  school,  as  a  whole,  fit 
their  nature  and  needs  better  than  the  public  school  does  those 
who  frequent  it.  Far  more  wisdom  and  intelligence  have  been 
expended  in  providing  for  these  exceptional  children  (as  well 
as  idiots  and  sense  defectives)  in  the  last  few  decades  than  in 
conducting  the  public  schools.  It  is  for  those  not  fitted  or 
loyal  to  the  latter  that  pedagogic  genius  has  done  perhaps  its 
very  best  work.  The.  tame,  docile  children  have  the  rutty, 
hack,  conventional  teachers  who  dread  innovation,  huddle 
together  for  strength  and  clamor  for  uniformity  of  system, 
and  become  adepts  in  suppressing  all  roystering  and  escapade- 
loving  supervital  human  cubs  into  dull,  cowed,  commonplace, 
henpecked  conformity,  in  whom  the  possibility  of  originality 
in  thought  and  deed  is  smothered.  Instead  of  being  kept 
young  by  the  children  in  their  charge,  as  good  parents  are, 
these  teachers  grow  old  early  because  of  chronic  anxiety  lest 
something  vital  and  interesting  should  happen  in  their  school- 
rooms. They  cannot  and  dare  not  be  original  save  in 
petty  variations.  Teachers  of  exceptional  children,  on  the 
other  hand,  have  every  provocation  for  the  higher  degrees 
of  pedagogic  originality,  and  they  have  risen  to  their  op- 
portunity. It  is  precisely  the  best  of  the  institutions  pro- 
vided for  boys  whom  the  stock  pedagogue  deems  dull,  bad, 
or  both  that  are  setting  the  fashion  for  the  education  of  the 
future,  where  work  that  will  pay  alternates  with  study  and 
play,  and  where  social  organizations,  self-government,  and 
strict  moral   regimen  are  wisely  combined.     The  education 


MORAL   EDUCATION  273 

provided  for  the  strong-willed,  headstrong,  exceptional,  active 
boys  with  some  of  the  red  blood  of  savagery  still  coursing  in 
their  veins,  as  in  the  George  Junior  Republic,  Boys'  Clubs,  and 
various  institutions  under  the  care  of  the  courts,  is  to-day 
often  nearer  to  the  real  nature  of  boyhood  than  anything  that 
has  yet  been  provided  for  the  turbulent  transformation  stage 
of  life.  More  than  that,  it  is  this  education  that  really  fits  the 
natural,  as  opposed  to  the  stall-fed,  exhibition,  model  boys  that 
so  many  parents  prefer  and  teachers  wish  to  turn  out,  that  is 
setting  the  fashion  for  the  education  of  the  future. 

Physical  training,  that  is,  gymnastic  exercises  with  and 
without  apparatus,  finds  its  stimulus  from  within  as  contrasted 
with  games  and  athletics  which  find  their  motives  without. 
The  former  has  behind  it  the  culture  motive  to  develop  and  be 
strong;  the  motive  of  the  latter  is  to  excel  others.  As  an  arti- 
ficial substitute  for  work,  it  becomes  needful  somewhat  in  pro- 
portion as  city  and  sedentary  life  increases.  As  boys  become 
interested  in  their  biceps  they  grow  trusty  and  are  more  likely 
to  be  temperate,  to  accept  discipline,  to  be  more  interested  in 
wholesome  regime.  As  muscles  develop,  the  gap  l^etween 
knowing  and  doing  narrows  and  motor  mindedness  increases. 
There  also  arises  a  salutary  sense  of  the  difference  between 
tolerable  wellness,  or  mere  absence  of  sickness,  and  an  exuber- 
ant buoyant  feeling  of  abounding  vitality,  health,  and  vigor 
which  brings  courage,  hope,  and  right  ambition  in  its  train, 
power  to  undergo  hardship,  do  difficult  things,  bear  trials,  and 
resist  temptation,  while  flabby  muscles  and  deficiency  of  exer- 
cise give  a  sense  of  weakness,  lust  for  indulgence,  easy  dis- 
couragement, and  feelings  of  inefficiency.^ 

Habits  and  Morals. — We  do  not  begin  to  utilize  the  culture 
of  health  as  the  basis  of  morals  as  we  should  do.  because 
we  do  not  realize  that  their  relation  is  so  intimate  as  at 
many  points  to  be  entirely  identical.  Rody-kecpiiig  with  the 
young  can  and  should  l)e  made  almost  a  religion ;  and  most  of 
the  worst  sins  and  errors  of  youth  arc  in  no  way  more  effect- 
ively forefended  than  by  high  ideals  and  a  vigorous  cult  of 
personal  and  social  hygiene.     Indeed.  Plato  thought  he  could 

'  On  the  three  last  topics,  sec  some  excellent  suggestions  in  Stuart  H.  Rowc's 
Habit-formation  and  the  Science  of  Teaching.      New  York,  Longmans,  Green  & 
Co.,  1909,  308  p. 
19 


274  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

not  teach  an  invalid  morals  because,  if  he  had  not  learned  the 
art  of.  body-keeping,  still  less  could  he  discipline  his  soul. 
Pindar  traced  the  pedigree  of  the  Olympic  victors  back  to  the 
immortal  gods;  cities  gave  them  their  highest  honors;  they 
shaped  the  canons  of  Greek  art ;  their  goal  was  physical  per- 
fection of  form  and  of  function,  to  live  in  a  body  which  could 
do  everything  mechanical  possible  for  it  to  accomplish  without 
break  or  strain.  Through  orchestration  and  dancing,  physical 
culture  became  the  art  of  the  muses.  Appetite  was  a  bodily 
conscience  like  the  Socratic  demon,  deteriorating  from  im- 
proper viands  or  too  much,  with  a  voice  still  and  small  as  that 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  although  like  it  often  sinned  against  and 
grieved  away.  Normally  it  should  point  straight  to  the  pole 
of  perfect  health.  Holiness  and  health  are  the  same  word ;  and 
they  suggest,  too,  liberal,  all-sided  culture.  Hygiene  and  re- 
ligion have  always  been  related  even  when  both  were  most 
perverted.  Hard  as  the  saying  is,  either  we  or  our  parents 
have  sinned  if  we  are  not  in  youth  healthful.  Most  of  us 
can  be  well,  if  we  wish  it  intensely,  passionately,  and  wisely 
enough,  for  nowhere  is  nurture  more  effective  in  mending  the 
flaws  of  nature  than  in  health.  Just  ordinary,  mucker  wellness 
in  answer  to  the  universal  question  :  How  do  you  do  ? — is  not 
enough ;  but  we  should  live  near  the  top  notch  of  our  con- 
dition, which  is  the  supreme  art  of  life,  for  on  such  physiolog- 
ical altitudes  most  of  the  success  and  greatest  achievements  of 
men  have  been  wrought.  To  be  sure,  there  have  been  sickly 
geniuses  or  men  of  talent  who  have  overdrawn  their  vitality; 
but  the  real  raw,  psychic  stuff,  the  protoplasm  out  of  which 
nearly  every  form  of  greatness  and  success  is  made,  is  the 
superfluous  vigor  given  by  an  extra  good  stomach,  heart, 
lungs,  strong  nerves,  and  muscles.  This  appears  in  childhood 
as  animal  spirits,  the  rapture  of  being  alive,  which  is  the  great- 
est joy  on  earth.  It  gives  Gemiith,  esprit,  euphoria,  makes 
men  mettlesome,  nobly  ambitious  of  the  highest  good,  beauty, 
and  truth  which  the  gods,  without  envy,  permit  to  man's 
estate.  It  makes  the  feelings  in  which  we  live,  move,  and  have 
our  being  not  only  vital  but  virtuous.  Only  he  who  is  well, 
strong,  can  face  the  world  with  dauntless  courage  and  reso- 
lution to  do  or  suffer,  will  not  collapse  under  the  sudden 
strains  so  liable  to-day,  or  decline  into  the  easy  life  or  perhaps 


MORAL    EDUCATION  275 

to  a  refined  invalidism  and  be  ready  for  Osier's  chloroform 
or  Carnegie's  pension  in  the  forties  or  fifties.  How  we  are 
drawn,  like  those  who  trek  through  arid  deserts  to  a  spring, 
by  those  hearty  men  and  women  who  overflow  with  spon- 
taneous good  spirits,  good  will,  and  good  cheer  for  which  the 
soul  pants  and  of  which  our  nerves  are  often  so  scant!  All 
these  things  are  the  direct  products  of  abounding  health. 

I  have  begun  a  course  of  ethics  with  lower  college  classes 
and  for  two  or  three  months  have  given  nothing  but  hygiene ; 
and  I  believe  the  pedagogic  possibilities  of  this  mode  of  intro- 
duction into  this  great  domain  are  at  present  unsuspected  and 
that,  instead  of  the  arid,  speculative,  casuistic  way,  not  only 
college  but  high-school  boys  could  be  infected  with  the  real  love 
of  virtue  and  a  deep  aversion  to  every  sin  against  the  body. 
Sin  is  sickness  and  virtue  is  health  of  body  as  well  as  of  soul. 
Hence  plain  talks  on  sleep,  toilet,  food,  dress,  exercise,  recre- 
ation, regularity,  sex  regimen  and  heredity,  training,  interest 
in  periodic  weighing  and  measuring,  with  a  good  deal  of  dis- 
cussion about  diet  and  nutrition — these,  I  believe,  should  be 
the  basis  of  the  moral  teaching  of  the  young.  The  world  saw 
in  Greece,  and  again  in  the  days  of  Jahn  a  physical  Renais- 
sance ;  and  perhaps  we  may  now  be  entering  a  third.  The  first 
two  preceded  the  most  brilliant  periods  in  the  intellectual  his- 
tory of  mankind.  Some  tell  us  this  has  been  the  case  in  Japan 
and  likewise  in  Germany;  since  the  Turner  societies,  the 
stature  of  soldiers  has  l)een  increased  and  a  new  sense  of  loy- 
alty and  heartiness,  which  is  the  best  basis  of  purity,  patience, 
courage,  and  fraternity,  has  been  established.  The  playground 
movement  is  now  rapidly  extending  over  the  whole  world; 
cities  are  lavishing  large  sums  and  widening  acreages  devoted 
to  play.  The  Pope  lately  witnessed  the  contests  of  the  athletic 
societies  of  Italy,  became  their  patron  and  conferred  250  gold 
and  silver  medals  from  a  temporary  throne  erected  in  the 
garden  of  the  Vatican.  School  hygiene  has  become  an  inter- 
national movement  and  has  had  several  congresses.  Even  in 
China  an  imperial  decree  has  forbidden  oi)ium  and  foot- 
binding. 

The  Sophistication  of  Conscience. — Knowledge  has  little  or 
no  intrinsic  value  in  and  of  itself;  that  it  has  is  the  superstition 
of  rationalism,  and  is  just  as  misleading  on  one  side  as  the 


276  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

merely  commercial  view  of  knowledge  is  on  the  other.  Like 
light,  knowledge  is  good  not  to  see  but  to  see  by.  Careful 
psychic  analysis  shows  that  love  of  knowledge  for  its  own 
pure  sake  is  probably  an  impossibility ;  and  when  we  speak  of 
this,  we  are  really  concerned  with  the  effects  of  knowledge 
upon  character,  which  is  its  supreme  value.  It  cannot  exist 
without  modifying  character  and  conduct;  and  its  worth 
is  measured  by  its  efficacy  in  doing  this  aright.  Especially 
humanistic  cultjire  must  ripen  into  ethical  potency.  Hegel  de- 
fined pedagogy  as  the  art  of  making  men  moral.  Ignorance  is 
doubtless  better  than  knowledge  that  does  not  make  us  better ; 
and  there  is  a  purely  intellectual  culture  that  is  disastrous  to 
virtue.  Most  of  all  is  this  especially  the  case  in  the  field  of 
the  practical  will,  where  to  drag  instinct  before  the  bar  of 
reason  emasculates  it,  as  illustrated  in  the  following  homely 
incident : 

Years  ago,  a  rich  lady,  member  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher's 
church,  fell  from  a  Brooklyn  ferry-boat  near  the  dock  and  was 
saved  by  a  rough  old  English  sailor,  who  plunged  in  and  res- 
cued her  by  clinging  to  a  floating  ice  cake.  So  they  had  a 
reception  for  him  in  the  church  vestry,  to  which  he  was  very 
reluctantly  brought,  where  he  was  entertained,  flattered,  and 
almost  dragged  to  the  platform  where  Beecher  described  his 
heroic  act  with  an  eloquence  that  thrilled  all  present,  gave  him 
a  purse,  and  pinned  a  medal  to  his  jacket.  "  Tell  us  just  how 
you  did  it,"  Beecher  said ;  and  the  cry  was  volleyed  back  from 
the  audience.  The  sailor,  writhing  and  sweating  with  embar- 
rassment staggered  to  his  feet  and  said  :  "  There  ain't  much  to 
tell ;  the  boat  give  a  lurch ;  she  pitched  in ;  and  I  was  standin' 
nearest  and  jumped  in  after  her,  just  as  anybody  would  do.  I 
only  done  my  duty.  I  ain't  a  hero  and  if  I'd  known  you'd 
a'thought  a  common  tar  like  me  was  trying  to  do  a  big  thing 

and  would  a'made  all  this  fuss  about  it,  I'd  a'let  the old 

woman  drown.  I  wisht  I  had.  I'll  never  do  such  a  thing 
again,  so  drop  it  and  let  me  go,  for  I've  got  to  have  a  drink." 
And  he  bolted  for  the  door.  Next  morning  he  was  in  the 
police  court  for  drunkenness  and  disorder.  His  money  and 
medal  were  gone  and  fame  knew  him  no  more. 

In  this  case  a  sudden  crisis  was  sprung ;  the  deed  was  done. 
Like  many  of  the  best  samples  of  great  heroism  in  the  French 


MORAL   EDUCATION  277 

collection,  the  splendid  act  was  impulsive  and  unreasoning; 
there  was  no  weighing  of  motives  with  a  deliberative  choice, 
for  perfect  virtue  knows  nothing  of  conscience  or  of  temptation. 
There  is  just  a  healthy  instinct  pointing  always,  like  the  com- 
pass toward  the  pole,  toward  the  highest  good  of  the  individual 
and  the  race.  If  we  always  did  right,  we  should  no  more 
know  we  had  a  conscience  than  the  well  man  knows  he  has 
a  stomach,  heart,  or  nerves.  To  be  conscious  of  conscience 
means  that  evil  has  found  entrance  and  that,  if  we  do  right  we 
do  so  only  with  a  majority  of  our  faculties  and  not  unanimously 
with  them  all.  Very  much  good  is  done  in  this  way.  to  be 
sure,  but  it  is  not  virtue  of  the  purest  order  but  of  secondary 
quality.  Virginal  purity  never  debates  or  parleys,  for  to  delib- 
erate is  often  to  be  lost ;  but  the  teachable  morality  of  the  text- 
books in  ethics  is  of  a  lower  order  than  that  which  is  intuitive 
and  automatic.  The  world  needs  it  badly  enough,  to  be  sure, 
but  it  is  nevertheless  essentially  remedial ;  it  is  not  primordial 
innocence  but  moral  convalescence.  Hence  it  is  not  better  to 
have  sinned  and  be  saved  than  never  to  have  sinned  at  all. 
The  old  sailor  felt  in  the  depths  of  his  soul  that  to  be  made  con- 
scious of  his  good  deed  brought  deterioration  of  its  quality.  If 
the  best  of  us  have  sinned,  every  one  of  the  worst  of  us  has, 
like  him,  some  trait  of  this  pristine,  unfallen,  spontaneous 
goodness.  Thus  the  deepest  moral  instinct  at  its  best  impels 
men  to  do  the  right,  and  often  the  ideal,  thing.  Happily  there 
is  much  of  this  aboriginal  goodness  in  the  world  and  strains  of 
it  are  braided  and  veined  through  very  bad  lives ;  but  probably 
in  every  soul  there  is  something,  and  in  most  souls  much,  that 
no  stain  of  depravity  has  ever  touched. 

But,  having  once  sinned  and  suffered  because  our  moral 
instinct  was  not  clear  and  strong  enough  to  keep  us  right, 
instead  of  acting  like  the  child  who  may  touch  fire  and  the 
chick  that  may  peck  at  its  excrement  once  but  never  needs  to 
do  .so  twice  to  learn  the  lesson,  we  let  conscience  brood,  reflect, 
and  worst  of  all  regret,  and  so  keep  resolutions  for  reform 
playing  over  the  surface  of  the  soul  instead  of  letting  the 
lessons  of  experience  sink  to  the  subconscious  springs  of  future 
action.  This  is  merely  invalidism,  often  interesting,  pathetic, 
perhaps  tragic  in  its  issue;  but  it  does  not  lead  to  righteousness 
but  to  the  contorted  scrupulosity  of  the  New  England  con- 


278  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

science.  It  opens  wide  the  doors  of  casuistry.  It  is  moral 
Fletcherism  with  excessive  mastication  of  motives,  ruminations 
of  the  past  and  general  fussiness  about  results  and  details  as 
conscience  grows  more  and  more  freaky  and  neurasthenic. 
Intellectualizing  moral  sanctions  thus  dilutes  will  power  and 
diverts  the  intellect  from  its  essential  function  of  making  the 
great  and  essential  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  the 
primal  intuitions  concerning  which  are  deeply  ingrained  in 
every  soul. 

Text-book  work,  classroom  discussions,  and  much  intro- 
spection cause  youth  to  lose  perspective  and  orientation.  Thus 
the  moral  sense  is  sickly,  distraught,  and  freaky.  It  is  deca- 
dence and  degeneration  for  the  young  to  fall  into  the  habit  of 
talking  or  thinking  rather  than  personally  acting  and  resolving 
where  any  and  every  moral  question  is  involved.  A  tingling, 
itching,  or  sore  conscience  is  thus  a  danger  sign  for  the  young. 
Only  the  completely  matured  man  can  guide  his  conduct  by 
the  OtXocro^to  ^iov  Kv^€pv^T7]<;,  the  motto  of  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa,  philosophy  the  guide  of  life. 

Honor. — For  these  reasons  I  would  now  build  upon  an- 
other principle  in  moral  teaching  alongside  that  of  conscience : 
viz.,  honor.  The  basis  of  this  is  found  in  all.  What  insult 
will  make  the  most  effeminate,  flabby,  cowardly  schoolboy  or 
gamin  fight,  or  the  boldest  and  most  unabashed  girl  blush, 
weep,  and  hate,  like  the  imputation  of  dishonor?  At  the  lie 
direct  or  a  slur  at  his  mother,  the  vilest  wretch  will  defy  the 
heaviest  odds.  When  honor  is  gone,  the  Japanese  knight, 
tfained  in  the  chivalrous  code  of  Bushido,  seeks  death  by 
hari-kiri;  and  who  would  not  defy  it  in  defending  a  lady, 
even  against  one  from  whom  he  would  personally  flee.  The 
Pauline  charity  is  a  tamer  thing,  but  it  has  no  more  manifold 
and  inspiring  catalogue  of  predicates  for  the  Christian  than 
honor  has  for  the  gentleman  born  and  bred.  Honor,  like  con- 
science, is  often  very  capricious,  perverted,  fantastic;  and  it 
may  be  only  a  crabbed,  shriveled  remnant  as  studied  in  its  his- 
tory or  in  contemporary  instances.  It  is  found  among  thieves, 
prostitutes,  beggars,  and  is  sought  in  badges,  degrees,  and  titles 
of  nobility  that  schools,  colleges,  societies,  and  kings  bestow. 
We  have  seen  how  the  French  utilize  this  principle.  The  Paris 
preacher,  Wagner,  says  its  function  is  to  the  unborn,  to  teach 


MORAL   EDUCATION  279 

a  life  that  is  pure  and  dorninated  by  the  interests  of  posterity. 
Chesterfield  said  that  a  high  sense  of  it  is  the  distinctive  trait 
of  a  true  gentleman.  Gizycki  deems  it  ideal  conduct  in  every 
relation  of  life.  Here  again  we  must  turn  to  the  Greeks.  It 
has  been  described  in  Aristotle's  magnanimous  man,  dignified 
in  mien,  slow  of  speech  and  movement,  unerring  in  moral 
judgments,  and  in  conflicts  always  finding  the  higher  way; 
also  in  the  imperturbable  Stoic  sage,  who,  the  neo-Socratic 
school  in  Belgium  say,  could  be  completely  happy  in  poverty,  if 
all  men  thought  him  mean,  if  burning  at  the  stake  or  in  hell 
itself,  if  he  had  only  the  mens  sibi  conscia  recti,  but  who  with- 
out it  would,  like  the  tyrant,  feel  mean  and  wretched  within 
though  all  men  praised  him  and  lavished  upon  him  their  tokens 
of  respect ;  Kant's  august  sense  of  obligation  from  within  that 
filled  his  soul  with  the  same  awe  as  did  the  starry  heavens  and 
which  made  him  fear  not  only  that  pleasure  and  pain,  but  even 
future  rewards  and  punishments  would  corrupt  it  with  selfish- 
ness; Nietzsche's  superman,  Zarathushtra,  who  despised  all 
who  were  not  superior;  the  born  nobleman  of  nature  who 
cannot  pity  those  whom  selection  ought  to  exterminate,  who 
despises  all  dignity  and  eminence  not  based  on  genuine,  in- 
trinsic merit,  is  marked  in  all  he  says  and  does  by  inherited 
distinction  and  his  friendship  where  he  bestows  it  is  an 
honorary  degree.  Ask  yourself  candidly  as  you  look  about 
at  life  and  man  if  any  moral  motive,  or  any  religion,  or  even 
love  can  to-day  supply  a  stronger  motive  in  the  old  and  espe- 
cially in  the  young  than  an  appeal  to  honor,  even  though  it 
be  undeveloped  and  distorted.  Indeed,  is  he  a  true  man  who 
would  not  on  the  instant  face  the  king  of  terrors  in  any  form 
to  save  his  honor,  and  is  not  the  highest  thing  to  live  for  that 
which  we  would  die  for  on  occasion?  What  a  paltry  life  is 
left  for  all  of  us  if  it  is  gone!  You  say  it  is  a  military  and 
pagan  virtue,  and  so  it  is ;  but  there  is  also  now  a  virile  Chris- 
tianity that  is  soldierly,  and  Jesus  Himself  was  at  no  point  less 
than  a  gentleman,  hut  rather  all  that  and  vastly  more.  In 
every  emergency  to  ask  what  is  the  ideal  course  to  pursue,  the 
highest,  purest  and  most  disinterested  motive  to  act  from,  the 
loftiest  and  not  the  most  expedient  solution,  choosing  to  l)e 
refuted  by  merely  specious  arguments  rather  than  to  use  them 
and  win  out — this  is  honor ;  but  to  succeed  by  trick  or  subter- 


28o  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

fuge,  to  do  right  because  it  would  be  embarrassing  to  be  found 
out  wrong,  to  give  or  take  secret  rebates,  to  adulterate,  to 
consent  to  corporate  practices  that  as  individuals  we  should 
shrink  from,  to  be  silent  when  we  see  imposition  and  outrage 
which  exposure  would  put  to  flight — is  not  this  always  and 
every wliere  rank  dishonor  ?  To  own  a  dollar  not  honestly  won 
and  that  does  not  represent  a  real  service — is  this  honor? 
Honor's  own  true  knight  keeps  a  personal  conscience  that 
party  allegiance  or  popular  clamor  cannot  silence.  His  maxim 
is  not  the  craven  one — make  no  enemies  whatever  befalls — but, 
make  the  enemies  of  truth,  right  and  common  justice  be- 
tween man  and  man  in  your  community  your  own  enemies. 
Two  years  ago  the  English  tennis  champion  was  nearing  the 
end  of  the  third  rubber  game.  Both  were  exactly  even  when 
the  American  made  a  fluke  which  would  have  lost  him  the 
international  championship,  but  the  Englishman  deliberately 
made  exactly  the  same  fluke  because  he  did  not  count  it  honor- 
able to  win  on  an  accident.  This  was  true  sportsmanship,  the 
very  heart  and  soul  of  our  country's  need.  Collegians  need  it 
on  the  diamond,  gridiron,  and  track;  how  we  now  need  it  in 
business,  trade,  politics!  If  that  were  the  spirit,  instead  of 
winning  at  any  price,  I  wonder  if  we  might  not  almost  sanction 
racing,  pugilism,  and  even  duelling  if  they  only  were  schools 
of  honor,  pure  and  undefiled,  instead  of  dishonor. 

The  noblest  of  all  its  functions  is  to  regulate  love,  for 
posterity  and  all  the  issues  of  the  future  of  the  world  are  com- 
mitted to  the  honor  of  young  men.  True  honor  cannot  pos- 
sibly sneak,  cheat,  or  lie.  The  life  it  makes  us  lead  is  single, 
not  double.  It  knows  nothing  of  two  standards,  one  for 
Sunday  and  one  for  the  shop,  factory,  or  stock  market;  one 
for  men  and  another  for  women.  It  keeps  the  spirit  and  not 
merely  the  letter  of  the  medical,  legal,  club,  student,  and  other 
professional  codes  of  ethics,  for  it  is  simply  ideal  conduct  in 
every  rank  and  walk  of  life.  It  is  moral  idealism ;  it  is  to  the 
inner,  all  that  manners  and  style,  which  are  so  much  in  them- 
selves, are  to  the  outer,  life;  it  is  the  best  bond  and  boon  of 
friendship — another  too-forgotten  pagan  virtue — which  in  its 
classical  sense  of  Aristotle  and  Cicero  can  live  again  in  the 
modem  world  only  in  its  atmosphere.  Let  us  rescue  it  from 
its  perversions,  reinterpret  it  in  the  larger  light  of  evolution  as 


MORAL   EDUCATION  281 

having  for  the  conduct  in  the  future  perhaps  something  of  the 
same  promise  and  potency  that  the  stupendous  word  "  faith  " 
had  for  Paul,  "  justification  "  for  Luther,  "  conscience  "  for 
the  ethics  of  the  eighteenth-century  morahst.  The  mediaeval 
courts  of  love  and  the  lofty  ideals  of  Arthur,  Gawain,  Launce- 
lot,  and  they  of  the  Round  Table,  and  the  Grail,  conceived 
and  idealized  it  as  living  as  if  noble  ladies  were  looking  on  at 
every  act,  but  for  its  knights  to-day  it  is  the  whole  inner  voca- 
tion of  man.  Perhaps  its  destiny  is  to  preside  over  and  be 
loyal  to  the  future  of  our  race,  to  keep  love  high,  true,  and 
wedded  to  religion  as  it  always  should  be,  for  only  each  can 
keep  the  other  pure.  To  the  honor  of  us  to-day  is  committed 
the  interests  of  all  who  come  after  us.  Thus,  may  we  not 
conclude  that  true  honor  should  be  the  native  breath  and  vital 
air  of  the  true  man  who  is  also  a  true  gentleman?  This,  I 
believe,  is  the  basis  of  the  ethics  of  the  future  for  young  men, 
and  especially  for  collegians  whose  ideals  are.  or  should  be, 
the  best  basis  from  which  to  prophecy  the  future. 

Albert  Ungard  ^  gives  fifty-three  German  words  made 
from  or  compounded  with  the  word  Ehre — honor,  and  perhaps 
many  more  definitions  and  descriptions  of  it  by  literary  men, 
philosophers,  soldiers,  etc.  These  show  very  great  diversity  in 
its  conception.  It  is  as  indefinable  as  good  taste,  tact,  common 
sense,  glory  or  Gcmiith.  All  men  and  women  claim  it.  It  does 
not  coincide  with  conscience.  It  involves  some  sense  of  worth, 
dignity,  self-respect,  and  it  also  demands  a  certain  respect 
from  others,  for  it  claims  recognition.  It  usually  involves 
courage  and  is  perhaps  the  thing  that  those  who  have  would 
more  readily  die  for  than  forfeit.  It  has  knightly  pride  and  is 
often  associated  with  rank  or  position.  It  involves  ideals  of 
conduct,  and  has  been  defined  as  the  summuni  homim  of  char- 
acter. It  is  the  religion  of  spirited  old  and  especially  young 
men  who  have  wrought  out  codes,  often  very  clalx^rate.  defiji- 
ing  how  honor  is  won,  protected,  impugned,  stained,  lost,  re- 
gained, and  sometimes  codifying  insults  of  various  kinds  and 
degrees  of  mitigation  or  gravity,  apologies,  reparations,  and  as 
a  last  resort,  duels  in  manifold  forms.  A  recent  (hu'lling  code 
of  a  German  corps  gives  sixty-three  points  on  which  one  may 

'  Ehrc  und  Ehrcnschutz.     Vienna,  Hartlcbcn,  1908,  134  p. 


282  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

be  declared  dishonorable  and  have  to  seek  satisfaction  on  the 
Mensur.  Honor  may  be  ideal,  or  perverse,  touchy  and  quar- 
relsome, and  is  often  most  challenging  when  least  genuine. 
In  the  very  active  discussion  now  for  some  time  going  on  in 
Germany,  one  side  is  well  set  forth  by,  for  instance,  Professor 
Binding,  also  by  Meyer,  the  Austrian  prince  Alfonso  in  Bour- 
bon, arid  many  others,  who  urge  that  real  inner  worth  cannot 
be  insulted,  but  only  the  claim  to  it  can  be.  It  is  essentially 
immaculate  although  the  respect  due  to  it  may  be  impaired. 
Some  urge  that  none  but  himself  can  soil  a  man's  honor.  It  is 
invulnerable,  and  those  who  think  themselves  liable  to  lose  it 
are  those  who  possess  it  least  securely  and  subject  themselves 
to  needless  and  often  very  acute  anxiety.  In  the  belief  that 
honor  can  really  be  impaired  by  others  lies  great  danger  to 
peace  of  mind,  to  social  tranquillity,  and  to  justice.  To  this 
it  is  answered  that  one's  good  name  or  repute  may  be  filched 
and  leave  one  poor  indeed  even  though  the  mens  sibi  conscia 
recti  still  remains.  Who  is  so  strong  that  his  self-respect  is 
not  affected,  if  that  of  others  for  him  is  lost,  and  what  more 
keen  moral  anguish  can  be  conceived  than  to  be  despised  by 
those  whose  reverence  we  most  desire  ?  One  may  live  a  noble 
life  and  win  the  highest  repute  among  his  fellow  men  seeking 
as  the  dearest  thing  on  earth  to  merit  their  good  opinion  of 
him,  and  all  this  the  slanderer  may  destroy  and  that  so  subtly 
that  the  law,  always  clumsy  in  such  matters,  provides  no  re- 
dress. Surely,  too,  the  honor  of  a  lady  may  be  besmirched 
and  her  peace  of  mind  thereby  wrecked.  The  real  infamy  of  a 
blow  is  not  in  the  physical  but  in  the  psychic  pain  it  causes. 
But  is  this  not  sufficiently  punished  by  a  counter-blow?  Law 
courts,  it  is  said,  always  underestimate  honor. 

Professor  Lammasch,  of  the  University  of  Vienna,  pro- 
poses to  modify  existing  laws,  and  to  provide  a  special  court 
to  protect  honor.  Except  in  rare  cases,  he  would  obviate  fines, 
but  have  arrest  and  confinement  in  a  specially  provided  and 
not  too  unattractive  prison,  and  open  all  such  transactions  to 
publicity  and  the  press.  Existing  codes  have  dealt  very  crude- 
ly with  such  affairs.  But  why  not  courts  of  review  to  obviate 
duels?  In  Austria,  too,  a  new  honor  codex  by  Barbasetti,  a 
fencing  master,  with  239  paragraphs,  which  regulates  duels 
and  which  many  noblemen  and,  it  is  said,  even  the  emperor 


MORAL   EDUCATION  283 

revised,  has  lately  appeared.  The  criminal  law  in  that  land 
punished  duelling  with  imprisonment  from  six  months  to 
twenty  years,  but  this  code  declares  it  "  a  legitimate,  logical 
result  of  high  character  formation,"  "  one  of  the  noblest  ex- 
pressions of  the  human  soul."  Thus,  what  one  code  calls 
gentlemanly,  the  other  makes  criminal.  An  anti-duel  league 
(1902)  seeks  only  to  reduce  mortal  combat  to  cases  of  very 
grave  insult.  Oethalom  urges  that  the  duel  is  sometimes  a 
psychic  necessity  and  that  until  complex  and  special  laws  regu- 
late it,  it  will  persist,  despite  all  opposition.  He  gives  an 
account  of  many  notable  duels  which  at  least  show  how  in- 
tricate a  matter  it  is,  especially  among  soldiers.  He  pleads  that 
this  is  better  than  shooting  down  in  cold  blood,  duels  in  the 
dark  with  dirks,  or  duels  where  the  one  who  draws  the  black 
ball  commits  suicide,  which  he  says  are  characteristic  of 
America.  Duelling  has  always  existed  and,  therefore,  is  neces- 
sary— is  the  argument.  It  protects  the  honor  of  women.  The 
impulse  to  avenge  an  outrage  is  simply  irresistible.  Seduc- 
tion under  promise  of  marriage,  or  of  wives  and  daughters, 
is  better  punished  in  this  way  than  in  the  open  courts  where 
a  disgrace  is  given  the  greatest  publicity  and  the  press  gloats 
over  every  detail  so  that  the  disgrace  of  the  woman  is  maxi- 
mized, while  there  is  always  the  possibility  of  no  conviction. 
As  long  as  honor  is  dearer  than  life,  occasionally  emergencies 
will  arise  where  some  form  of  duelling,  if  no  more  than  with 
the  vulgar  one  of  the  fists,  is  resorted  to.  One  reason  why  the 
duel  appeals  to  a  certain  type  of  mind  is  because  it  is  a  re- 
crudescence of  a  very  ancient  stage  of  life  where  the  bully,  or 
possibly  where  a  strong  bad  man  may  rise  above  right  and 
wrong  and  do  his  own  will  in  his  own  way.  trusting  to  his 
superior  skill  with  weapons.  This  is  more  liable  when  duelling 
is  chiefly  with  swords  than  when  the  weapon  is  the  pistol.  The 
first  step  toward  refomi  is  certainly  to  define  honor,  and  this 
we  are  as  yet  far  from  able  to  do.  The  very  fact  tiiat  the 
conceptions  of  it  differ  so  widely  shows  how  difficult  this  task 
will  be. 

K.  Rodenstcin  '  tells  us  that  honor  is  a  high  ideal  good 


'  Das  Ehrgcfiihl  dor  Kinder.     Langensalza,  Beyer,  1899,  47  p.      (Pad.  Mag. 
Heft  133.) 


284  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

which  our  materialistic  age  is  too  careless  of.  Everyone  de- 
sires to  be  respected  and  valued  by  those  about  him.  Popu- 
larity for  ambition,  good  name  and  reputation,  all  are  related. 
To  serve  one's  age  has  often  involved  strange  forms  of  honor, 
like  the  duel.  Self-respect  for  one's  own  personality  and  re- 
sentment at  any  insult  to  it  are  social  self-feeling.  The  judg- 
ment of  youth  is  very  fluctuating  but  is  very  potent  upon 
children  in  the  group.  The  teacher  must  judge  very  carefully 
in  awarding  praise  and  blame.  Only  Campe,  influenced  by 
Rousseau,  would  exclude  the  instinct  of  honor  from  the  field 
of  education,  but  most — Niemeyer,  Pestalozzi,  Herbart,  Stoy, 
Ziller,  etc. — would  utilize  it.  Ehrgefiihl  is  very  different  from 
Ehrgeia.  Schiller,  in  his  "  Criminal  from  Lost  Honor,"  shows 
how  disaster  follows  one  who  abandons  regard  for  the  good 
opinion  of  others  about  him.  Vox  popiili,  vox  dei,  suggests 
the  norm.  The  Jesuits  overdid  appeals  to  emulation  and 
rivalry.  Marks,  grading,  and  prizes  may  be  overdone.  Some 
think  all  premiums,  diplomas,  rank,  and  merit  tables  breed 
conceit,  overtension  and  lust  for  publicity,  and  w^ould  even  con- 
demn public  declamations  and  recitations.  Daily  place  taking 
is  bad.  Fools'  caps  and  seats  of  disgrace,  severe  scolding, 
especially  contempt,  injure  honor,  and  very  likely  class  heroes 
will  be  developed.  Shutting  up  is  dangerous.  Legal  responsi- 
bility, which  begins  at  twelve,  may  be  well  used.  Children 
should  not  be  shamed  nor  their  bodies  exposed,  and  flog- 
ging should  never  be  in  public.  Even  to  cry  shame  is  ques- 
tionable. It  is  well  to  let  children  see  that  the  teacher  tries  to 
shield  them  from  shame.  Children's  faults  and  virtues  should 
not  be  talked  about  before  them.  Recognition,  even  by  a  word 
or  a  glance,  is  a  great  power,  even  for  those  who  are  obtuse. 
Honor  merges  into  ever  larger  and  larger  circles,  until  finally 
it  becomes  patriotism. 

Mastery  and  Specialisation. — Alongside  the  cult  of  per- 
sonal health  and  that  of  honor,  I  believe  a  third  duty  to  self  is 
capable  of  being  extremely  effective  for  morals  with  maturing 
young  men  of  parts — and  that  is  the  duty  to  l^e  master  of 
something.  I  believe  with  all  my  heart  in  general  culture. 
The  average  American  probably  has  more  general  knowledge 
than  the  citizen  of  any  other  land  past  or  present.  He  reads 
more  newspapers  and  monthlies,  has  and  uses  more  libraries 


MORAL    EDUCATION  285 

and  colleges  per  capita;  is  more  interested  in  other  people's 
business;  keeps  studying  longer  on  in  life,  as  witness  our 
summer,  evening,  and  especially  our  immense  correspondence 
courses  and  institutions;  shifts  more  readily  from  one  business 
or  occupation  to  another;  is  always  scanning  the  horizon  for 
openings ;  listens  more  readily  to  promoters  and  puts  his  scanty 
savings  into  more  get-rich-quick  schemes;  he  moves  oftener, 
travels  more,  and  more  than  anyone  else  in  the  world  has  ever 
done  has  an  eye  out  for  the  main  chance.  But  when  it  comes 
to  knowing  and  doing  one  thing  well  to  the  point  of  mastery 
we  touch  our  national  weakness.  In  the  expert  work  of  bank- 
ing, in  technical  processes,  both  chemical  and  mechanical,  in  the 
fine  crucial  and  determining  points  of  trade  and  commerce, 
and  the  expert  function  generally,  England  has  notoriously 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  those  born  abroad.  These  things  are 
now  carried  on  in  Germany.  In  not  a  few  lines  of  business,  art, 
and  manufacture,  we,  too,  have,  though  to  less  extent,  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  alien  experts,  if  we  have  them  at  all.  This 
would  have  been  far  less  the  case  here  wefe  our  high  pro- 
tective tariffs,  which  too  often  shelter  slovenly  and  behind- 
hand methods  of  production,  abolished,  so  that  competition 
were  world-wide  and  the  fittest  only  could  survive.  The  tariff 
walls  are  profitable  because  our  home  markets  are  so  vast,  but 
they  shelter  ignorance,  lack  of  mastery  of  industrial  processes 
and  are  thus  indirectly  harmful  to  all  technical  and  higher 
scientific  education.  Germany,  for  instance,  a  few  years  ago 
was  making  a  profit  of  one  hundred  and  ten  million  dollars  per 
year  for  her  chemical  industries  alone  because  she  led  the  world 
in  this  line  of  research,  some  great  concerns  emjiloying  more 
than  a  score  of  university  trained  men  in  constant  investigation 
ujKJU  new  ways  of  cheapening  cost,  bettering  ])roducts.  and 
utilizing  waste.  Were  our  tariffs  down,  then  American  cliem- 
ical  industries  and  processes  could  only  compete  by  rivaling  in 
the  quality  of  the  training  we  give  experts;  but  it  is  far  easier 
to  raise  the  tariff  still  higher  than  to  raise  the  level  of  chemical 
expertness  and  we  are  too  prone  to  the  easy  way. 

And  so  it  is  in  other  fields.  \\q  are  just  beginning  to  learn 
the  power  that  comes  to  individuals  and  nations  by  specializa- 
tion which  is  not  only  economic  organization  of  nu'iitai  laljor, 
but   has   a   man-making   power   as   yet   hardly   drcamefl   of. 


286  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

The  chief  mental  trait  that  distinguishes  a  boy  from  a  girl  is 
his  desire  to  know,  do,  or  be  something  unique,  distinctive  and 
individual,  and  his  lack  of  interest  in  doing  and  knowing  what 
everyone  around  him  does.  His  complacency  in  ignorance  on 
common  matters  that  would  shock  a  girl  not  to  know  is  only 
paralleled  by  the  interest  he  has  in  something  exceptional.  If 
a  young  man  is  true  to  the  metal  and  temper  of  manhood  he 
will  strive  to  excel  others  in  something  in  order  to  keep  his 
self-respect.  Common  knowledge  and  skill  have  little  charm 
and  a  high-school  curriculum  made  up  of  uniform  and  identical 
standardized  blocks  of  knowledge  repels  him  so  that  he  leaves 
the  table  d'hote  courses  to  the  girls  who  like  it  and  stay,  and 
wants  to  feed  his  soul  electively  a  la  carte.  As  Emerson  said, 
that  since  the  world  is  round,  every  man  everywhere  can 
stand  under  the  highest  point  of  the  zenith  which  slopes  down 
in  every  direction  from  him,  so  in  the  world  of  knowledges 
and  skills  there  are  as  many  kinds  of  excellence  as  there  are 
individuals  with  originality,  if  not  far  more,  and  every  man 
not  born  short  Ccin  find  something  in  which  he  can  become  a 
master  and  authority  and  no  longer  an  echo  or  a  copy.  His 
superiority  may  be  as  small  as  making  needle  points  but  in- 
dividuality is  not  finished  till  it  culminates  in  some  special 
power,  nor  is  the  ideal  of  a  democracy  fully  realized  till  every 
person,  like  each  cell  and  tissue  of  our  body,  does  something 
peculiar  to  it  and  better  than  any  other  does  it.  This  instinct 
has  just  now  its  highest  academic  expression  in  research — a 
word  so  often  misunderstood  and  even  perverted.  A  scholar 
who  has  once  had  the  experience  of  having  made — yes,  or  even 
of  having  honestly  thought  that  he  has  made — a  new  contribu- 
tion to  the  sum  of  human  knowledge,  who  has  molded  ever  so 
tiny  a  bricklet  that  fits  ever  so  obscure  a  corner  of  the  great 
temple  of  truth,  which  we  call  by  the  comprehensive  term 
of  science,  physical  and  humanistic,  which  is  man's  greatest 
achievement  yet  on  earth,  has  attained  his  intellectual  majority, 
and  only  he  has  truly  graduated  from  apprenticeship  to  mas- 
tery. In  doing  this  he  has  also  won  a  distinctly  new  and  fine, 
almost  regenerated  mental  experience.  He  knows  truly  for 
the  first  time  what  intellectual  freedom  is.  Having  once 
spoken  his  word  to  the  competent  in  print  or  where  they  con- 
gregate, and  been  heard  and  accepted,  he  is  a  new  creature,  a 


MORAL   EDUCATION  287 

citizen  of  the  world  of  culture.  Recognized  as  an  authority 
in  his  field,  be  it  ever  so  small,  he  more  readily  accepts  the 
authority  of  others  in  their  own  domain  and  is  therefore  more 
docile  and  receptive  in  all  other  fields.  Tasting  what  Aristotle 
calls  the  ecstasy  of  the  theoretic  life  is  to  the  thoroughbred 
original  mind  like  the  first  taste  of  blood  to  a  young  tiger.  He 
becomes  fierce  in  the  pursuit  of  truth.  He  has  won  a  just  self- 
respect  which  will  help  him  to  safeguard  his  moral  life.  The 
great  world-soul  has  spoken  through  him.  He  is  a  real  person, 
worth  something  in  the  world.  He  has  a  place,  is  of  service; 
his  life  has  value  and  meaning;  he  is  an  end  to  himself.  After 
such  an  experience  he  comes  to  regard  mere  learning  and 
knowing  as  on  a  slightly  lower  plane,  as  doing  business  with 
other  people's  ideas,  as  dealing  with  second-hand  knowledge  or 
with  goods  liable  to  become  somewhat  frayed  and  shopworn. 
The  luxury  of  knowing  without  achievement  does  not  beckon 
him.  Scholarship  is  not  itself  an  accomplishment  but  a  means 
to  accomplishment  needful  for  the  higher  work  of  discovery 
and  invention.  The  creative  man  who  can  truly  think  God's 
thoughts  after  Him  in  nature.  His  original  revelation,  wants 
to  be  a  servant  of  Truth  and  in  her  pay,  and  experiences  the 
lofty  satisfaction  of  deep  insight  into  fresh  truth  and  of  the 
ineluctable  conviction  almost  lost  in  our  day. 

Is  there  any  need  in  American  universities  and  colleges  to- 
day that  compares  with  that  of  greater  intellectual  earnestness, 
whether  for  faculties  or  for  students  ?  In  the  many  books  we 
professors  write,  are  we  not  too  often  content  \o  edit,  translate, 
compile,  conflate,  report  from  the  great  European  scholars 
who  have  themselves  l)een  to  the  sources  and  plucked  the  fruit 
right  off  the  branches  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  and  eaten  it 
fresh  from  the  stem,  instead  of  dried,  preserved,  or  canned? 
Are  we  not  a  little  complacent  with  our  borrowed  plumes,  too 
unacquainted  witli  the  delicious  flavor  of  conviction  and  the 
precious  experience  of  the  eye  that  first  sees  new  nuggets  of 
truth  quarried  and  shining  up  from  the  very  bowels  of  the 
mine?  Are  we  not  prone  to  turn  over  our  little  budget  of 
knowledge  from  year  to  year  in  class  with  not  enough  annual 
increment,  eternally  working  it  over  and  settling  complacently 
to  professional  routine  at  twoscore,  or  more  or  less?  Or,  be- 
cause I  confess  to  being  guilty  myself,  as  I  do,  do  I  therefore 


288  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

suspect  American  professors  generally  on  the  principle  that 
makes  a  villain  think  there  are  no  good  men  and  women,  or 
would  I  shrive  others  in  asking  professors  to  become  confes- 
sors merely  because  I  have  sinned  myself  by  not  living  up  to 
my  ideal? 

And  students  should  ask  themselves  in  some  quiet  hour 
what  they  honestly  love  most,  study  or  sport,  pushing  out  into 
the  great  ocean  of  knowledge  or  playing  in  the  shallows  of  the 
beach?  Did  anyone — and  this  is  my  chief  point  here — ever 
succeed  who  did  not  love  his  work  better  than  anything  else? 
Especially  when  everything  is  so  intricate  and  apprenticeship 
so  long  as  it  is  to-day,  he  who  does  not  so  love  his  work  that 
it  becomes  play,  so  that  he  turns  to  it  rather  than  anything 
else,  cannot  win  the  prizes  of  our  day.  Years  ago  I  heard 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  say  that  the  best  test  of  a  man  was 
what  he  did  with  his  leisure;  and  I  think  that  the  greatest 
good  fortune  that  can  befall  a  man  is  to  be  able  to  make  as  his 
vocation  what  he  loves  to  do  during  his  vacation.  A  genius 
will  fail  if  he  attempts  too  much,  and  a  dull  man  may  highly 
succeed  if  he  focuses  and  perseveres.  If  there  is  something 
that  you  prefer  to  do  to  anything  else,  that  way  lies  your  call- 
ing, and  if  there  is  no  such  dominant  interest  that  you  can 
trust,  let  yourself  go  in,  launch  out  and  take  chances,  how- 
ever unprecedented,  new  and  unique  it  is,  or  however  old,  then 
the  chances  are  that  after  a  few  years  of  post-graduate 
struggle  you  will  join  the  great  army  of  tuft  hunters,  seeking 
ready-made  places,  perhaps  looking  up  a  wife  with  a  big  dot, 
being  proud  to  hold  an  ofifice  and  wear  a  livery.  This  is  already 
the  curse  of  French  education  to-day,  where,  from  the  gradu- 
ates of  the  Lycee  up,  the  young  baccalaureate  aspires  only  to 
drop  into  a  fat  salary  and  wear  a  government  uniform  so  that 
W'hen  the  appointment  is  received  and  entered  upon  nothing 
more  remains  to  be  recorded  of  their  lives  save  only  the  date 
of  their  death  and  the  appointment  of  their  successor.  Our 
sires  went,  and  were  not  sent,  to  college.  They  made  their 
livelihood  and  did  their  work  in  the  world  upon  the  capital  of 
the  knowledge  they  got  in  the  course;  but  with  far  greater 
opportunities,  their  sons  and  grandsons  in  the  academic  courses 
now  too  often  get  just  enough  attenuated  culture  to  inoculate 
them  to  the  point  of  immunity  against  any  later,  graver  attacks 


MORAL   EDUCATION  289 

of  the  passion  for  knowledge.  In  the  legislative  committee, 
in  the  council  of  doctors  when  life  liangs  on  a  thread,  where 
great  business  schemes  or  technical  processes  or  political  poli- 
cies are  decided,  the  decisive  word  is,  and  far  more  should  and 
will  be,  spoken  by  the  expert  who  has  mastered  all  the  facts 
and  summated  the  world's  experience.  Mastery  gives  a  sense 
of  self-respect,  dignity,  worth,  value,  because  personality  really 
culminates  in  it.  With  a  sense  of  a  definite  place  in  the  social 
and  industrial  organism,  and  the  sense  of  solidarity  and  inte- 
gral membership  which  comes  with  it,  youth  are  best  safe 
guarded  from  a  life  of  mere  self-indulgence ;  and  are  given  a 
potent  incentive  which  is  far  more  effective  than  any  direct 
ethical  inculcation. 

One  cause  of  juvenile  wildness  and  even  crime  is  the  long 
summer  school  vacation.  For  two  or  three  months,  and  that  in 
the  outdoor  season,  boys  who-'have  nothing  to  do  are  let  loose 
on  the  street,  where  they  naturally  tend  to  grow  wild  and 
where  idleness,  especially  in  cities,  does  its  worst  for  them. 
Perhaps  worst  of  all  is  the  suburb  of  the  large  city,  where  the 
fathers  are  all  away  and  even  a  man  on  the  street  during  the 
day  is  a  rara  avis.  Here,  distinctly  new  moral  conditions  arise. 
'*  God  made  the  country,  man  made  the  town,  but  who  but  the 
devil  made  the  suburb?"  In  vacations  generally  mothers 
who  have  been  wont  to  the  great  relief  caused  by  the  absence 
of  their  children  in  school  find  it  hard  to  have  them  in  the 
house  and  so  let  them  nm  at  large.  Their  activity  finds  new 
vents  and  they  range  wider  as  they  grow  older  and  as  their 
instincts  for  social  aggregation  with  their  mates  strengthen. 
Vacation  is  harder  on  clothes,  and  appetites  are  greater  and 
meal  times  irregular.  Parents,  especially  mothers,  are  thus 
not  infrequently  worn  out,  long  for  school  to  begin,  and  sigh 
with  relief  when  the  children  are  well  started  for  it  in  the 
morning,  realizing  that  not  only  their  own  troubles  but  the 
dangers  and  temptations  of  their  offspring  are  lessened. 

Another  cause  of  lawlessness  rarely  noted  is  the  i^ro-iviiig 
absence  of  families  of  the  better  class  during  hot  weather.  The 
very  presence  of  the  respectables  in  their  homes  and  upon  the 
street  makes  more  or  less  for  order  in  their  locality;  but  the 
desertion  of  home  for  summer  resorts  not  <Mily  impresses  those 
who  remain  with  perhaps  slight  and  unconscious  jealousy  of 
20 


290  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

their  superior  position  in  the  scale  of  wealth  and  comfort  in 
heing  able  to  seek  desirable  localities,  but  directly  awakens  in 
those  who  stay  a  sentiment  that,  if  the'  grounds  of  their  rich 
neighbors  are  not  good  enough  for  their  use  in  the  summer, 
they  should  at  least  not  be  barred  to  those  who  live  near  and 
stay  behind.  "  What  right  have  people  to  own  the  most  at- 
tractive homes  in  several  places  when  they  can  only  use  one  at 
a  time  ?  "  is  the  way  I  have  heard  this  feeling  voiced.  "  We," 
it  is  said,  "  who  must  stay  here  despite  the  heat  are  at  least  as 
good  as  the  workmen  left  in  charge  of  the  great  estates  " ;  and 
private  grounds  surely  ought  to  be  open  to  the  public  when 
their  owners  are  not  using  them,  at  the  very  least  at  stated 
times.  Thus  these,  barred  admission  to  attractive  domains, 
flaunt  social  distinctions  in  an  age  when  socialistic,  not  to  say 
communistic,  tendencies  are  more  active  in  the  popular  mind 
than  even  it  is  conscious  of.  Surely  every  estate  should  be 
freely  opened  at  times,  and  especially  when  the  owners  are 
away. 

In  the  recent  movement  against  child  labor,  some  of  the 
prohibited  kinds  and  conditions  of  work  for  juveniles  would 
be  in  fact  peculiarly  helpful  within  the  forbidden  age  limits,  so 
that  these  laws  have  in  some  cases  at  least  created  an  idleness 
worse  in  its  moral  effects  than  the  former  labor.  Now  a  rap- 
idly increasing  number  of  children  who  have  left  school  are 
not  allowed  to  accept  employments  which  they  wish,  and  so 
they  grow  wild  under  just  the  conditions  and  at  just  the  age 
most  exposed  to  moral  and  physical  degeneration.  Industrial 
schools  and  trade  classes  provide  for  only  a  very  small  part  of 
those  who  might  profit  by  them,  and  are  often  not  fitted,  in  the 
kinds  and  methods  of  work  for  which  they  are  trained,  to  meet 
actual  conditions.  There  is  at  present  hardly  any  compulsion 
to  attend  these  schools,  although  there  should  be.  Many  em- 
ployers of  skilled  labor,  or  of  that  which  requires  intelligence 
above  the  average,  have  lately  gradually  raised  the  lower  age 
limit  at  which  they  receive  boys,  so  that  older  boys  for  mini- 
mum wages  crowd  out  the  younger.  Hence  the  dangerous 
and  often  tragic  years  of  from  about  twelve  to  fourteen  or 
fifteen,  just  after  the  required  schooling.  Boys  who  then  seek 
work  can  usually  find  only  odd  jobs;  and  those  who  can  find 
steady  ones  often  sink  slowly  and  with  great  reluctance  from 


MORAL   EDUCATION  291 

the  prolonged  stress  of  necessity  into  a  life  of  unskilled  labor 
with  chronic  discontent. 

Social  Workers  and  Psychological  Experts  in  the  School. — 
Doctors  have  been  very  shortsighted,  especially  in  hospitals 
where  a  procession  of  strange  patients  files  by.  Each  is  ex- 
amined, diagnosed,  and  prescribed  for;  then  the  next  has  his 
turn.  Now,  howev^er,  physicians  are  coming  to  feel  the  need 
of  team  work,  and  so  progressive  hospitals  have  social  workers 
to  visit  the  homes  and  learn  what  special  worries,  illness  of 
bread-winners  in  the  family,  etc.,  contribute,  and  which  of 
these  causes,  which  drugs  cannot  reach  but  which  are  part  of 
most  diseases  especially  among  the  poor,  can  be  removed. 
Better  yet,  preventive  medicine  is  seeking  to  promote  health  so 
that  the  truly  up-to-date  doctor  is  in  a  sense  abolishing  him- 
self by  engaging  more  and  more  in  the  study  and  practice  of 
social  and  personal  hygiene.  It  is  thus  found  that,  in  nearly 
all  cases  of  fault  or  flaw  in  our  physical  organism,  as  Dr.  R.  C. 
Cabot  puts  it,  some  one  needs  to  be  educated,  and  that  some 
one  must  be  sought,  found,  and  trained.  The  doctor,  we  are 
told,  has  been  too  prone  to  judge  his  patients  by  certain  rubrics, 
categories,  and  classes,  not  realizing  that  each  patient  presents 
features,  perhaps  the  most  vital  ones,  keys  to  the  whole  situa- 
tion, that  are  entirely  new  and  which  have  never  been  de- 
scril)ed  in  any  text-books  or  lectures,  and  perhaps  never  seen 
before  in  a  clinic.  Hence  the  doctor  must  now  l>e  a  humanist 
as  well  as  a  scientist  if  he  wishes  to  see  all  the  facts  in  a  case. 

Yet  more  true  is  all  this  of  the  teacher,  who  usually  knows 
so  little  alx)ut  his  or  her  individual  pupils,  but  deals  with  them 
in  groups  and  grades;  and  where  individuals  are  attended  to, 
set  rules  are  followed.  How  far  all  this  is  from  the  realization 
that  every  child  is  a  unique  problem  by  itself,  and  that  its 
success  or  failure  in  life  may  depend  upon  bringing  out  its  own 
proprium,  as  the  scholastics  called  the  particular  thing  in  each 
that  differentiated  him  from  everyone  else!  Teachers  need  a 
great  development  of  their  sense  of  individuality  and  personal- 
ity, such  as  is  now  impelling  physicians  to  seek  and,  if  possible, 
find  some  new  scientific  truth  in  every  case  instead  of  seeing  in 
it  only  what  had  been  seen  before.  Every  moral  fault  in  every 
child  also  means  that  some  one  has  lacked  and  needed  educa- 
tion ;  but  to  find  this  source  of  defect  often  ref|uires  a  very 


292  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

careful  survey.  No  moral  treatment  worthy  the  name  is 
possible  in  many  cases  until  the  child's  daily  life,  food,  hygiene, 
ethical  surroundings,  history,  and  heredity  have  been  studied. 
Ordinary  school  codes  with  their  rewards  and  punishments  for 
specific  acts  are  like  medical  prescriptions  at  sight,  given  by 
rule  for  certain  symptoms.  Hence  trained  social  workers 
should  be  attached  to  every  school,  and  team  work  between  the 
teacher,  school  physician,  and  clinician,  the  nurse,  the  home, 
and  the  social  environment  is  necessary  to  make  amends  for 
specialization  of  effort  which  ignores  if  it  does  not  sacrifice  the 
unity  of  the  child.  Soon  it  will  be  seen  to  be  absurd  to  ad- 
minister education  alike  for  all,  with  uniformity  of  method 
and  standard,  without  regard  to  poverty  or  wealth,  ignorance 
or  culture,  disease  or  health,  idleness  or  overwork,  home  re- 
lations, etc.  The  rich  need  expert  advice  for  their  children  as 
much  as  the  poor,  and  sometimes  more.  A  consulting  child 
psychologist,  sociologist,  and  hygienist,  to  whom  both  parents 
and  children  may  be  taught  to  apply  for  relief,  possibly  with 
ofiice  and  visiting  hours,  and  a  clientele  of  families,  and  per- 
haps even  fees  ultimately  for  those  who  can  pay,  with  services 
free  to  all  patrons  of  the  school  to  which  they  are  attached, 
is  a  growing  need.  Here  domestic  difficulties  need  disen- 
tangling, there  the  lessons  of  new  and  sudden  experiences  need 
to  be  drawn  for  those  who  lack  the  wisdom  to  draw  them  for 
themselves.  Many  a  marred  character  can  be  mended,  if  it  be 
once  realized  that  souls  and  traits  are  the  supreme  objects  of 
concern  and  that  all  schools  ought  primarily  to  be  schools  of 
philanthropy.  Every  child  should  have  the  benefit  of  being 
occasionally  the  theme  of  a  conference  or  council,  and  its 
moral  health  should  be  prescribed  for  from  among  the  growing 
materia  medica  now  at  the  command  of  the  ethical  therapeutist, 
such  as  playgrounds  and  apparatus,  dietaries,  regimen,  home 
and  other  work  and  service,  direct  charity,  the  type  of  school, 
or  the  kind  of  education — whether  boarding  or  day,  for  normal 
or  subnormal,  defective,  reformatory,  etc.  Every  problemati- 
cal or  exceptional  child,  and  eventually  every  child,  then, 
should  have  the  benefit  of  an  occasional  psycho-analysis  by  all 
the  very  best-established  methods  of  laboratory  and  of  psycho- 
therapy where  moral  diagnosis  and  treatment  can  be  had. 
How  pitifully  little  our  stock  ethics  knows  of  the  psychology, 


MORAL   EDUCATION  293 

e.  g.,  of  the  hard-pressed,  or  dreams  of  the  new  wealth  of  both 
practical  and  scientific  knowledge  not  yet  gathered  in  text- 
books or  even  reports  upon  these  most  vital  topics,  which  is 
now  being  garnered  in  the  minds  of  experienced  and  sagacious 
social  workers  who  get  hard  up  against  those  who  are  them- 
selves hard  up  against  the  great  death-and-life  struggle  for 
survival !  ^ 

Moral  education  must  first  of  all  remove  all  that  cramps 
the  soul  of  childhood.  It  must  realize  that  some  children  need 
hard  work  and  would  be  saved  by  it;  while  others  need  rest 
and  leisure;  some  are  spoiling  for  lack  of  kindness,  and  some 
for  lack  of  severity ;  some  need  more  control,  some  more  free- 
dom, for  some  are  ausgelassen  and  some  repressed.  Boys  are 
sometimes  morally  cured  of  their  worst  vices  by  hardship  and 
exposure  to  wind  and  weather;  while  others  need  the  greatest 
tenderness  and  protection.  Thus  moral  education  cannot  be 
much  taught  in  classes  or  by  rule,  but  is  largely  a  matter  of 
individual  prescription :  one  child's  food  is  another's  poison. 
There  is  almost  nothing  good  and  bad  for  all  alike.  Thus  we 
shall  never  solve  the  problem  of  moral  education  until  we  base 
treatment  always  and  everywhere  upon  careful  study  of  each 
person.  Hence  the  present  methods  of  schooling  masses 
in  uniform  ways,  very  actively  and  positively,  disqualifies 
teachers  for  this  most  important  of  all  the  functions  of  the 
school.  They  cannot  see  the  trees  for  the  woods.  Perhaps 
probation  work  will  be  of  different  degrees  and  types,  so  that 
all  children  can  share  its  ameliorating  and  beneficent  influences. 

Justice  that  simply  seeks  to  prove  the  fact  or  act  and  then 
apply  the  penalty  as  if  all  were  equal  before  the  law  is  now 
generally  admitted  to  be  obsolete  for  the  young,  although  the 
legal  mind  is'  still  prone  to  divide  the  world  into  two  siiarply 
demarked  classes,  such  as  criminal  or  law-abiding,  sane  or 
insane,  guilty  or  not  guilty;  when  in  fact  there  is  very  little 
in  the  lives  of  most  of  us  that  makes  either  one  of  these  exclu- 
sive of  the  other.  All  boys  are  difficult  and  probably  criminal 
under  a  strict  definition  of  that  term  at  certain  stages,  because 
their  growth  is  not  symmetrical,  so  that  as  Harr  and  Taylor 

'  Here  I  am  indebted  to  Richard  ('.  ("alx)t.     Sim  ial  Servii  e  and  the  Art  of 
Healing.     New  York,  Muflat,  Yard  &  Co.,  1909,  192  p. 


294  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

have  pointed  out,  their  age  is  made  up  of  at  least  two  factors — 
years  and  degree  of  psychic  and  physical  development — which 
often  do  not  coincide,  some  traits  being  premature,  others  be- 
lated, some  impulses  excessive  and  tumultuous,  and  others 
just  beginning  to  bud.  Certain  it  is  that  all  who  deal  with 
boys  should  above  all  keep  themselves  openminded  and  always 
be  ready  to  modify  all  the  knowledge  they  have  acquired  be- 
fore, in  view  of  a  single  case.  Probably  our  best  legislation  is 
just  now  provisional.^ 

Correlation  of  Agencies. — The  time  is  not  far  off  when  we 
shall  coordinate  all  educational  agencies  for  all  classes  of  chil- 
dren of  school  age,  whether  they  be  actually  in  or  out  of  school. 
Hitherto,  orphanages,  reformatories,  institutions  for  the  deaf, 
blind,  idiotic,  etc.,  have  generally  been  under  separate  control 
and  managed  with  very  diverse  degrees  of  intelligence.  Very 
few  or  no  normal  schools  or  academic  courses  in  education  fit 
teachers  or  instructors  for  these  institutions.  All  of  them  as 
well  as  truant  schools,  perhaps  children's  hospitals,  infirmaries, 
nurseries,  juvenile  courts,  child-labor  agencies,  creches,  and 
all  other  public  and  private  institutions  for  the  care  and  better- 
ment of  the  bodies,  minds  or  -morals  of  children  should  corre- 
late their  work  so  that  eventually  it  may  all  become  so  con- 
solidated that  each  child  can  be  placed  in  that  position  in 
the  whole  great  system  which  will  do  most  and  best  for  it 
at  each  stage  and  so  that  changes  from  one  to  the  other  can  be 
made  whenever  it  becomes  for  the  welfare  of  the  child.  All 
these  are  educational  in  the  large  sense  of  that  word,  although 
each  has  its  own  ends.  Diversities  of  agencies,  aims  and 
methods  should  increase;  and  incorrigibles,  defectives,  home- 
less, neglected,  backward  children  and  the  rest  should  each 
have  special  provision ;  but  integration  should  keep  pace  with 
this  differentiation.  This  is  not  necessary  so  much  for  econo- 
my of  administration  although  it  would  bring  that  gain,  as  for 
increased  efficacy  along  each  line  by  contact  with  all  the  rest 
and  for  the  all-dominant  interests  oi  the  children,  each  one  of 
whom  should  have  all  the  advantages  of  such  a  new  and  vaster 
elective  system   in   which   parent  and   experts  assigned   each 

*  R.  R.  Perkins,  Treatment  of  Juvenile  Delinquents.    Rockford,  C.  F.  Mcintosh, 
1906,  77  p.     (University  of  Chicago  thesis.) 


MORAL   EDUCATION  295 

child  its  fittest  milieu,  whether  the  corrective,  vocational, 
remedial  or  cultural  aims  dominated.  One  or  two  misfit  pupils 
in  a  class  anywhere  waste  the  teacher's  energy  vastly  out  of 
proportion  to  their  numbers,  for  work  with  homogeneous 
groups  insures  pedagogic  economy.  The  same  waste  occurs 
with  misplaced  teachers.  If  all  could  be  sure  of  the  place  in 
the  whole  scheme  where  they  could  do  their  best  work  and 
make  themselves  most  valuable,  there  would  be  great  gain  and 
in  this  environment  teachers  would  continue  to  grow  and  at  a 
surprising  rate. 

It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  we  should  welcome  every 
step  by  which  this  great  and  laborious  correlation  is  advanced 
— when,  for  instance,  a  superintendent  is  made  member  of  the 
Juvenile  Court  Commission,  or  a  teacher  made  judge,  or  the 
latter  placed  on  the  school  board ;  where  only  teachers  of  pro- 
fessional training  are  employed  in  corrective  institutions  or  in 
those  for  defectives;  where  charity  experts  and  physicians  in- 
terested in  orthopaedics  or  children's  diseases  and  hospitals  are 
brought  into  intimate  contact  with  school  work  or  administra- 
tion; where  the  snme  health  inspectors  are  employed  for  public 
schools  and  charity  institutions,  etc.  This  kind  of  consolida- 
tion which  is  now  happily  increasing  should  thus  take  account 
of  and  bring  out  individuality  and  not  suppress  it  as  is  now 
done  by  the  indiscriminating  mass  methods  in  vogue. 

Laziness  as  a  Root  of  Immorality. — The  chief  enemy  of 
active  virtue  in  the  world  is  not  vice  but  laziness,  languor,  and 
apathy  of  will.  The  law  of  least  effort  is  universal.  We 
economize  labor  by  machines,  evade  tiiought  by  creeds,  and 
real  moral  decisions  by  habits  or,  at  best,  rules.  The  learn- 
ing of  even  so-called  scholars  often  seems  to  consist  largely 
in  knowing  how  not  to  think  themselves  but  to  utilize  some- 
one's else  thinking  instead,  as  parasites  live  upon  the  food  of 
their  hosts.  It  is  hard  to  reason,  decide,  judge;  and  so  the 
minimum  of  labor  often  comes  to  seem  the  suinniion  bonttm. 
Many  a  man  in  the  unconscious  depths  of  his  soul  is  dominated 
by  the  problem  how  to  find  the  easiest  way  and  life,  and  what 
labor-saving  devices  he  can  discover  ready  mack'.  It  sometimes 
almost  seems  as  if  a  brilliant  intellect  finds  its  highest  nsc  in  de- 
vising new  ingenious  ways  of  shirking.  Our  colleges  abound 
in  young  men  in  quest  of  making  a  livelihood  mure  easily  tlian 


296  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

their  sires  did.  It  requires  far  less  effort  to  appropriate  other 
people's  ideas  than  to  forge  out  those  of  our  own,  as  Plato 
accused  Aristotle  of  getting  his  thoughts  by  the  lazy  man's 
way  of  reading  rather  than  by  the  harder  and  more  original 
way  of  thinking  them  out  for  himself.  One  is  hewing  out 
fresh  stones  from  the  quarry,  and  the  other  is  getting  them 
by  despoiling  old  structures.  Genesis  tells  us  that  work  came 
into  the  world  as  a  curse,  and  so  we  seek  soft  berths  of  routine, 
with  no  appeal  to  originality.  That  few  realize  the  horror 
and  even  phobia  of  work  that  rules  in  the  depths  of  their  own 
soul  makes  the  matter  worse  rather  than  better.  Students 
are  peculiarly  prone  to  this  aversion  for  real  work,  and  no- 
where are  so  many  specious  substitutes  in  use  to  avoid  it  as  in 
academic  institutions.  For  m.any  with  little  mental  energy, 
even  a  serious  thought  of  work  is  fatiguing  and  brings  either 
despondency  or  resentment,  according  to  temperament.  It  is 
hard  to  understand,  and  so  they  fall  back  on  memory,  which 
is  easier;  it  is  hard  to  investigate,  and  so  they  compile;  hard 
to  reason  to  the  uttermost  upon  every  day's  research,  and  so 
they  accumulate  protocol  data,  tables,  slides,  or  describe  clini- 
cal cases,  as  if  under  the  hallucinatory  hope  that  some  great 
synthetizer  would  arise  sometime  in  the  future  who  could 
find  out  what  their  data  meant  and  work  it  up  with  others,  or 
that  the  dear  God  who  in  the  beginning  brought  order  out  of 
chaos  may  some  day  give  them  a  single  creative  moment,  in 
the  fervid  heat  of  which  their  unleavened,  unkneaded  dough 
may  be  baked  into  the  bread  of  life.  Some  students  rely  on 
coaches,  ponies,  while  the  baser  sort  may  swindle  at  examina- 
tions, plagiarize,  fake  and  bluff  their  way  through  the  portals 
that  are  meant  to  keep  the  unlearned  from  the  learned ;  and  in 
many  ways,  by  the  psychology  which  remains  to  be  investi- 
gated, injure  their  intellectual  conscience  itself  which  naturally 
cleaves  to  truth  as  the  supreme  good.  How  many  pretend  to 
do  what  they  have  not  honestly  done,  scamping  the  duty  of 
making  due  acknowledgments  to  those  by  whose  work  they 
have  profited  ?  When  a  discoverer  gets  to  the  point  where  no 
one  else  has  ever  penetrated,  he  is  for  the  nonce  beyond  the 
reach  of  every  critic  or  every  kind  of  correetive  or  control  and 
may,  if  he  will,  fabricate  more  or  less  with  at  least  transient 
impunity  and  present  clever,  easy  guess  work  as  if  it  were  hard 


MORAL   EDUCATION  297 

demonstration.  Now,  study  or  mind  work  is  infinitely  harder 
than  physical  toil;  and  for  this  reason,  as  well  as  because 
standardizations  are  more  difficult,  its  products  are  often 
adulterated.  One  unique  type  of  student,  sometimes  classed 
amongf  the  intellectuals,  is  of  those  always  buzzing  with  busy 
work,  actively  marking  time  without  advancing,  fluttering 
like  a  candle  in  the  wind,  running  up  against  many  great  topics 
but  penetrating  none,  thinking  themselves  cultivated  when 
they  are  only  stimulated  and  excited,  affecting  an  all-sided 
scholarship  when  they  are  really  only  scatterbrains. 

Now  both  talent  and  genius,  as  opposed  to  all  this,  consist 
chiefly  in  the  passion  and  love  of  work,  sustained  and  severe 
work,  in  some  field  and  upon  some  theme,  the  ability  to 
toil  on  without  exhaustion,  because  inspired  by  perpetual 
interest  and  warmed  by  self-feeding  fires.  Such  men  have 
an  instinctive  and  spontaneous  lust  for  activities  which  to 
softer  souls  seem  drudgery.  Most  of  us  when  the  time 
draws  near,  as,  e.  g.,  in  summing  up  for  theme  writing, 
when  we  must  nerve  ourselves  for  real  mental  effort,  first 
exhaust  about  every  method  of  procrastination  and  ease- 
ment. We  think  of  many  half-relevant  and  incidental  quasi- 
preparatory  things  to  do.  Perhaps  we  small  down  the  task  by 
eliminating  certain  sections  or  topics,  or  fleetingly  think  of 
changing  to  another  theme  which  has  suddenly  loomed  upon 
our  interest  and  seems,  as  all  new  themes  do,  like  a  soft  snap. 
It  may  be  that  we  postpone  portions  of  our  work  to  some  more 
convenient  season,  or  wish  various  extensions  of  time,  personal 
exceptions,  or  haggle  with  ourselves,  commit  ourselves  to 
various  resolves  to  finish  and  round  everything  out  in  some 
definite  future  time,  and  thus  mortgage  our  life  with  obliga- 
tions that  will  probably  never  be  foreclosed.  It  may  be  that 
we  linger  a  little  longer,  and  still  more  fondly,  in  the  stage  of 
reading,  note  taking,  and  forestudies — but  at  l<Migth  we  re- 
luctantly plunge  in  and  actively  do  make  perhaps  tiie  first  real 
effort  to  think  of  our  lives  by  warming  up  and  fusing  all  our 
data,  trying  to  intuit  the  inner  meaning  and  connection,  to 
grasp  the  underlying  ideas  and  weld  them  into  a  true,  logical 
order.  It  is  in  such  an  effort  that  the  higher  education  culmi- 
nates, because  only  by  this  can  the  scholar  really  test. himself. 
Something  like  this,  and  this  alone,  is  work. 


298  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

Now,  in  the  moral  world  laziness  is  the  great  enemy. 
Wrong  is  easy  and  right  is  hard.  City  youth  are  prone  to  be 
restless  and  overstimiilated,  to  be  "  always  looking  and  listen- 
ing and  never  thinking."  Amidst  outer  distractions  they 
know  more  of  Timbuctoo  than  of  themselves.  They  have 
much  experience  but  do  not  profit  by  it  because  they  lack  vigor 
and  will  to  infer  its  lessons.  Our  moral  prescriptions  are 
usually  made  to  fit  a  few  great  deeds,  whereas  moral  success 
in  modern  life  requires  sustained  endeavor  to  do  many  little 
things.  Just  here  we  can  see  how  procrastination  is  the  great 
paralyzer  of  the  will  and  even  the  destroyer  of  character.  To 
lie  abed  half  an  hour  realizing  that  one  ought  to  get  up  now, 
to  carry  around  day  after  day  the  feeling  that  one  ought  to 
write  a  letter  or  do  an  errand  and  yet  not  to  do  it,  to  extract 
satisfaction  from  good  resolves  dated  well  ahead — "  I  will  be- 
gin next  week,"  to  dawdle  on  with  many  unfinished  things, 
weakens  virtue  by  divorcing  knowledge  and  action  which 
should  be  one  and  inseparable.  Thus  we  lose  instead  of  gain- 
ing self-mastery,  which  is  an  art  that  requires  great  assiduity. 
By  diligence  virtue  can  be  developed  as  good  taste  can. 

One  of  the  best  means  to  this  end  is  meditation.  We  can 
control  the  movements  of  the  eye  and  thus  to  some  extent  can 
fixate  attention  and  so  develop  associations,  and  thus  bring  out 
weak  sentiments  and  ideas.  We  can  chew  our  food  enough 
by  taking  pains.  We  can  learn  to  use  our  best  moments  for 
resolutions  and  new  initiations.  We  can  voluntarily  hold  be- 
fore the  mind  the  disgust  that  follows  error  and  sin,  which 
easy-going  minds  tend  to  forget  and  so  lose  their  lessons.  St. 
Dominic  invented  the  rosary  to  help  focus  attention  in  prayer. 
The  attitude  of  bodily  devotion,  like  kneeling  and  clasping  the 
hands,  helps  in  prayer  as  gestures  bring  certain  states  which 
they  express.  We  can  cultivate  the  habit  of  reflection,  if  but 
briefly,  when  we  rise  in  the  morning  and  retire  at  night,  at  the 
beginning  of  a  school  term  or  its  close,  on  anniversaries,  birth- 
days, and  the  New  Year.  These  struggles  may  be  like  those 
of  an  athletic  swimmer  against  a  current  where  he  has  to  use 
all  his  effort  for  a  long  time  to  make  a  little  progress ;  but  all 
these  things  liberate  power  and  aid  self-conquest.  Just  as  we 
may  extend  our  vocabulary  and  improve  in  diction  by  inces- 
sant practice,  so  by  patient  attention  to  details  we  can  better 


MORAL   EDUCATION  299 

our  character.  By  directing  thoughts  we  guide  acts  and  feel- 
ings, and  may  thus  divert  them  from  things  of  sense  to  the 
highest  objects. 

Great  efiforts  are  occasionally  also  necessary.  In  some 
parts  of  our  psychic  garden  we  must  cultivate  a  few  of  the 
largest  growths  and  see  that  the  soul  is  not  too  crowded  with 
little  ones.  Our  college  associates  who  ridicule  hard  workers 
do  so  to  hide  their  own  shame.  Severe  toil  gives  not  only  a 
joy  that  lifts  us  far  above  petty  annoyances  and  thus  helps 
nervous  control,  but  it  also  brings  a  sense  of  reality  and  worth. 
All  strong  young  men  need  to  work  with  ardor  as  if  the  voice 
of  God  called  them.  Always  do  the  nearest  if  not  the  hardest 
thing,  and  not  wait.  I  know  a  professor  who  has  read  Homer 
and  quite  a  row  of  books  during  the  moments  daily  spent  at 
toilet  in  his  bath  room,  as  if  Cloaca  were  a  muse  to  whom  he 
brought  sacrifice ;  and  I  have  read  of  a  man  who  presented  his 
wife  with  a  volume  he  wrote  in  the  fragments  of  time  she  kept 
him  waiting  for  dinner.  This  gleaning  of  scattered  moments 
means  earnestness  and  high  charged  moral  efficiency.  Men 
who  can  do  these  things  do  not  accept  defeat  meekly.  They 
never  take  refuge  in  fatalism  by  saying  that  they  inherited 
handicapping  propensities  or  defects  but  think  instead  of  l)cing 
lords  of  their  own  fortune,  and  seem  sometimes  to  be  able  to 
defy  not  only  environment  but  heredity  itself.  They  deem  it 
weakness  to  control  everything  around  them  and  to  be  slaves  to 
a  lawless  and  untamed  self,  and  realize  that  one  who  rules  his 
own  spirit  is  indeed  better  than  the  conqueror  of  a  city.  As 
students  they  do  not  excuse  themselves  by  pleading  lack  of  op- 
portunity or  incentive.  Haeckel  says  in  substance  that  "  tlie 
scientific  output  of  a  university  is  generally  inversely  as  its 
size."  Mere  erudition  does  no  doubt  dull  the  intellect.  Tiie 
great  creators  in  science,  art,  literature,  and  the  rest  have  been 
moral  adventurers,  and  with  the  greatest  power  of  initiative 
are  often  far  less  learned  and  scholarly  than  even  their  pupils. 
They  are  full  of  inventiveness  but  careful  in  veriticati(»n.  com- 
bining criticism  and  creation,  suggestivencss  and  doubt. 
These  in  due  projiortion  make  great  minds  whose  faculties  are 
never  allowed  to  rust  and  who  never  would  think  of  blaming 
fate,  circumstance,  or  opportunity. 

Besides   languor,   the  other  great  moral  etuiny   is  sense. 


300  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

Carlyle  condemned  all  musing  on  the  tender  passion  and  called 
love  a  miserable  trifle  of  life  which  in  a  truly  heroic  epoch 
would  be  hardly  thought  of,  and  condemned  the  novelists  who 
make  sex  gratification  the  focus  of  all  the  interests  their  ro- 
mances portray.  Some  think  excessive  athletics  contributes  to 
sense  by  way  of  reaction.  Young  men  should  plan  to  marry 
young.  During  the  probationary  period,  if  absolute  victory 
is  hard  and  rare,  we  should  nevertheless  not  lose  heart  at 
occasional  lapses.  The  secret  of  virtue  here  again  is  the  con- 
trol of  thoughts;  and  to  "  see  life  "  is  dangerous.  The  Cath- 
olic Church  with  great  wisdom  in  this  as  in  so  many  other 
respects  provides  retreats  where  the  young  retire  to  take 
account  of  their  moral  debit  and  credit,  to  sum  up  results,  to 
take  bearings  and  soundings,  to  gather,  store  up,  and  assimi- 
late the  lessons  of  their  own  experience  which  so  often  go 
unutilized,  owing  to  incessant  outer  solicitations  that  make  us 
strangers  to  ourselves. 

For  moral  education  too  much  cannot  be  said  in  favor  of 
biographies,  if  not  too  long,  and  of  men  whose  lives  are  full 
of  ethical  uplift,  and  which  appeal  to  the  heroic  instincts  of  the 
young. ^  Here  again  the  Catholic  Church  has  in  its  Lives  of 
the  Saints  a  great  arsenal  of  material  rich  to  this  end.  Comte 
in  his  famous  calendar  set  apart  also  a  lay  saint  or  a  hero  of 
science,  a  hero  of  political  or  social  virtue  for  each  day  of  the 
year.  We  have  not  utilized  sufficiently  this  powerful  incen- 
tive ;  and  even  Plutarch's  Lives,  which  used  to  elevate  the  souls 
of  our  sires,  is  now  rarely  read  by  the  young.  If  the  young, 
who  always  ought  to  seek  acquaintance  with  their  superiors 
and  the  best  of  whom  tend  to  do  so,  really  meet  a  great  man  in 
flesh  and  blood,  he  easily  becomes  a  captain  of  their  souls  with 
almost  absolute  power.  In  illustration  of  this  we  need  only 
to  realize  what  some  of  the  great  confessors  have  been — what 
Fichte  did  with  the  students  of  Germany,  and  what  Lavisse 
has  in  our  own  day  done  for  and  with  the  students  of  Paris.^ 

'E.  J.  Swift,  Mind  in  the  Making.  New  York,  C.  Scribner's  Sons,  1908, 
329  p.    See  Chap.  I. 

^  In  the  last  paragraphs  I  have  probably  drawn  rather  freely  from  the  im- 
pressions left  by  the  recent  reading  of  J.  Payot's  admirable  Education  of  the  Will; 
authorized  translation  by  Smith  Ely  JellifTe,  from  the  thirtieth  French  edition. 
New  York,  Funk  &  Wagnalls  Co.,  1909,  424  p.  See  also  another  book  of  the  same 
title  by  T.  Sharper  Knowlson,  Philadelphia,  Lippincott,  1909,  210  p. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  301 

Honor  Systems  and  Self -government  by  Pupils  and  Stu- 
dents.— H.  D.  Sheldon  ^  and  many  others  whose  work  I  have 
elsewhere  described  ^  have  shown  the  great  difference  between 
the  spontaneous  and  the  adult-directed  social  organizations  of 
young  people.  The  crude  native  instinct  of  boys  to  get  and  act 
together  is  best  seen  in  the  gang  which,  if  unleavened  by 
maturer  influences,  tends  to  be  predatory,  savage,  tribal,  but 
with  a  very  strong,  rude  sense  of  honor  and  loyalty.  They 
often  tend  to  be  independent  and  even  defiant  of  restraint,  but 
it  is  from  the  social  instinct  which  they  express  that  a  large 
group  of  the  most  potent  moralizing  agencies  must  take  their 
departure.  Statistics  show  that  the  great  majority  of  boys 
have  at  some  period  belonged  to  them  or  to  similar  organiza- 
tions. They  exist  by  the  score  in  large  American  cities,  in 
two  of  which  nearly  a  hundred  each  have  been  found.  Of 
the  many  studies  made  in  this  field  reference  to  one  must  here 
suffice. 

J.  A.  Puffer  has  made  the  best  and  last  of  many  recent  studies 
of  boys'  gangs. ^  In  66  gangs  there  were  651  boys,  an  average  of  less 
than  10  each.  Large  gangs  often  split  up  into  small  ones.  Their 
names  are  often  taken  from  the  locality,  but  others  are  unique,  e.  g., 
White  Rats,  Eggmen,  Johnny  Boys.  They  nickname  each  other 
from  physical  or  psychic  peculiarities:  Puggy  is  a  boy  with  flat  nose; 
Cross-eyed,  Ginger-head,  Happy  Hooligan,  Pung  Lung,  Fat  (be- 
cause he  was  fat),  Jo  Six  Toes  (because  four  were  cut  off),  Smuck, 
Bum,  Foxy,  Duffer,  etc.  The  average  age  of  these  boys  was  just 
under  fourteen,  nearly  all  being  from  ten  to  fifteen  and  not  very 
many  composed  entirely  of  one  nationality,  although  Jews  were  ex- 
cluded from  all.  Most  meet  daily,  perhaps  at  street  corners,  most 
often  evenings.  Leaders  are  strongest,  best  players,  fighters,  good- 
natured,  smartest,  etc.  Entrance  is  usually  informal,  though  most 
new  members  have  to  undergo  a  good  deal  of  buffeting.  Few  have 
any  real  initiation.  They  do  not  seek  members  but  expel  those  who 
squeal,  spy,  lie  against  the  gang  or  will  not  fight  on  occasion.  The 
principle  is  "  I  stand  by  you,  you  stand  by  me."  They  divvy  up 
plunder.  Many  gangs  are  of  long  standing.  They  tend  to  regard 
strangers  as  enemies,  usually  have  nothing  to  do  with  girls  unless  to 
tease  them,  for  it  is  the  age  when  the  two  sexes  have  few  interests 

'  History  and  Pedagogy  of  American  Student  Societies.  New  York,  .\ppleton, 
1901,  366  p.  See  also  his  Institutional  Activities  of  American  ChiUirin.  Am. 
Jour,  of  Psy.,  July,  1898,  vol.  9,  pp.  425-448. 

'G.  S.  Hall,  Adolestence.     N.  Y.,  Appliton,  1904,  vol.  2.     See  p.  396  et  seq. 

•  Boys'  Gangs,  Ped.  Scm.,  June,  1905,  vol.  12,  pp.  175-212. 


302  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

in  common.  Their  games  and  nearly  all  their  other  activities  require 
cooperation.  Swimming  is  one  of  their  passions.  The  things  chiefly 
stolen  are  edibles  or  objects  to  play  with,  and  things  to  sell  come 
third.  They  are  prone  to  pick  up  fights.  The  members  are  often 
migratory  and  often  beat  their  way  to  other  places.  They  love  to 
hunt,  fish,  camp,  be  out  nights,  get  close  to  nature,  play  pranks,  call 
names,  loaf,  have  intense  passion  for  theaters,  shows,  and  will  do  al- 
most anything  to  get  the  price  of  admission.  Boys  of  the  same  age 
have  a  great  passion  for  being  together.  They  run  and  hunt  with 
the  pack  and  are  sometimes  ferocious  when  together,  showing  the 
greatest  energy,  which  only  needs  direction.  At  this  age  boys  crave 
experience  and  must  have  excitement.  Very  few  boys  of  the  lower 
and  middle  social  classes  do  not  belong  to  gangs,  which  are  much 
like  savage  tribes  in  their  disposition  and  organization.  The  virtues 
of  the  gang  are  love  of  exercise,  admiration  of  courage,  strength, 
justice,  loyalty,  obedience  to  the  leader.  The  gang  does  not  develop 
chastity,  and  is  often  noted  for  uncleanliness  of  talk,  sometimes  of 
conduct.  It  develops  runaways  as  well  as  nocturnal  habits.  Some 
have  thought  its  attraction  inversely  as  the  home.  It  is  often  very 
hard  to  get  boys  from  tough  gangs  into  clubs  and  it  takes  a  shrewd 
man  to  reach  them.  To  do  so  he  must  have  courage,  good  nature, 
and  generosity  to  stand  in  with  and  to  influence  them.  The  gang  has 
a  strong  mfluence  in  subordinating  the  individual  to  the  group  and 
the  general  impression  now  is  that  the  gang  should  not  be  suppressed 
but  should  be  controlled  and  directed. 

To  make  over  the  gang  into  a  boys'  club  is  a  great  step  and 
a  hard  one,  requiring  a  tact,  skill,  and  knowledge  of  boy  nature 
which  we  have  not  yet  learned  how  to  teach.  The  City  Boys' 
Club  with  provision  for  indoor  games,  gymnasia,  swimming 
tanks,  reading,  billiards,  etc.,  often  fails  with  all  these  attrac- 
tions to  draw  many  boys  save  in  cold  weather,  because  the  call 
of  the  freer,  breezier  life  of  the  street  is  louder.  Many  of 
these  are  designed  for  boys  in  the  earliest  teens  and  do  not 
admit  new  members  approaching  the  twenties,  even  though 
they  may  retain  the  old  ones  up  to  this  age.  The  allegiance 
of  the  gang  leaders  to  these  organizations  is  often  but  partial ; 
and  many  clubs  have  an  upper-age  limit  that  is  too  low,  and 
seem  to  be  afraid  to  break  in  raw,  wild,  older  boys.  This,  of 
course,  has  partial  justification  wherever  separate  provision 
cannot  be  made,  because  pre-  and  post-pubescents  should  be 
more  or  less  separated,  as  Crampton  has  so  well  shown,  and 
older  tend  to  make  trouble  of  many  kinds  for  younger  boys. 
Much  as  has  been  done  in  this  country  and  in  England,  no 


MORAL   EDUCATION  303 

city  has  clubs  enough  to  provide  for  more  than  a  small  fraction 
of  those  who  would  be  benefited  by  them ;  and  girls'  clubs  are 
still  very  few.  The  work  of  providing  for  wholesome  social 
intercourse  between  boys  and  girls  during  the  later  teens — 
which  is  one  of  the  most  vital  of  all  problems — is  generally 
regarded  as  too  intricate  and  delicate  to  grapple  with.^  Lads 
who  work  are  more  amenable  to  all  efforts  to  regulate  their 
social  life  than  are  boys  in  school,  partly  because  they  average 
older,  but  partly  also  because  industry  teaches  a  certain 
subordination. 

Still  further  from  the  gang  and  requiring  more  transforma- 
tion of  its  spirit  are  institutions  for  boys  in  the  early  and 
middle  teens  which  are  mainly  under  religious  influences. 
Like  the  Knights  of  King  Arthur,  Junior  Endeavor,  and 
many  other  organizations,  here,  too,  belong  mimic  states 
which  control  the  daily  life  of  boys — like  Boy  City,  Gunckel's 
Boyville,  the  George  Junior  Republic,  etc.  All  these  interest- 
ing institutions  are  the  creations  of  tactful  and  devoted  men, 
reaching  a  few  score,  or  at  most  a  few  hundred  boys  each. 
They  might,  of  course,  be  indefinitely  extended  in  number  and 
variety  without  limit.  These  I  have  discussed  elsewhere  {op. 
cit.).  The  actual  status  of  the  morals  of  boys  and  girls 
regarding  certain  questions  of  minor  morals  with  which  adults 
who  organize  self-government  schemes  are  relatively  far  too 
much  concerned,  is  probably  correctly  glimpsed  in  the  follow- 
ing study. 


•  In  a  very  interesting  work  by  C.  E.  B.  Russell  and  L.  M.  Rigby  (Working 
Ldds'  Clubs.  London,  Macmillan,  1908,445  p.;  see  also  Winifred  Black's  Boys'  Self- 
Governing  Clubs.  New  York,  Macmillan,  1903,  218  p.),  much  symjKithy  is  cxpn-ssed 
with  the  efforts  of  youths  and  maidens  to  get  together  as  seen  on  the  streets  which 
are  often  unpleasantly  crowded  when  they  promenade,  and  where  there  is  often  rough 
horseplay  and  jostling  in  the  instinct  of  fun.  These  autlmrs  think  that  even  pi<  k- 
up  acquaintances  here  arc  often  salutary  and  may  lead  to  excellent  marriages. 
That  the  sexes  must  meet  in  this  way,  however,  is  unfortunate  and  is  a  s;iil  tom- 
mentary  on  the  lack  of  homes  to  provi<ie  for  their  meeting  under  normal  <  onditions. 
Buck  SJiys,  "  I'ltimately  girls  and  women  in  every  rank  of  .society  are  very  much 
what  boys  and  men  make  them."  If  lads  appret  iate  or  condone  Ixiistcrous  jesting 
or  unseemly  familiarity,  girls  will  follow  the  lead,  but  they  have  gnat  influence  in 
turn  U{x)n  the  pn)priety  of  l)oth  word  and  deed  by  the  lx)ys.  In  the  mi<i<lle  teens 
he  deems  it  very  neces,s;iry  that  adecjuate  provision  should  W  made  for  proin-r, 
natural  and  innf>cenl  friendships  between  the  two,  that  they  may  leani  to  understand 
each  other  better. 


304  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

Dr.  A.  Tanner^  collected  data  of  615  boys  and  girls,  mostly  from 
II  to  15  years  of  age,  and  found  that  75  per  cent  would  not  tell  on  a 
playmate;  17  per  cent  would  lie  to  protect  him;  71  per  cent  would 
not  cheat  in  a  game;  71  per  cent  would  return  a  lost  article  they 
found  and  whose  owner  they  knew,  if  they  disliked  him,  whereas 
92  per  cent  would  do  so  if  they  liked  the  owner;  of  girls  46  per 
cent  would  tell  on  a  playmate,  as  against  25  per  cent  of  boys,  show- 
ing either  that  girls'  consciences  are  more  tender  or  that  they  have 
less  esprit  de  corps;  23  per  cent  of  the  boys  admitted  that  they 
would  cheat  at  a  game,  as  against  12  per  cent  of  the  girls;  45  per 
cent  of  the  boys  would  put  bad  money  in  a  slot  machine,  and  52  per 
cent  would  pass  it,  as  against  18  per  cent  and  5  per  cent  of  the  girls 
respectively.  Far  more  would  do  wrong  things  to  help  others  than 
to  help  themselves.  Moral  matters  like  these  are  with  children  of 
this  age  not  so  very  unlike  matters  of  taste.  Their  conscience  is 
largely  a  social  product,  so  that  it  is  not  being  discovered,  but  being 
condemned,  that  is  dreaded. 

In  grammar  grades  Wilson  L.  Gill  ^  has  embodied  one  of  the  best- 
known  and  most  influential  schemes  of  pupil  self-government  at  the 
State  Normal  School  at  New  Paltz,  which  has  three  school  cities: 
the  primary  for  little  children,  the  intermediate  for  older  boys  and 
girls,  and  the  normal  for  young  men  and  women.  Each  of  these  is 
organized  into  wards,  has  mayors,  sheriffs,  judges,  etc.,  with  consti- 
tutions increasing  in  elaborateness  up  the  grades.  The  three  cities 
constitute  the  school  state.  A  school  city  imitates,  as  far  as  it  can, 
a  real  city  government.  The  greatest  penalty  is  the  deprivation  of 
the  rights  of  citizenship. 

Colin  A.  Scott  allows  children  in  the  lower  grades  to  form  them- 
selves into  spontaneous  groups,  on  the  basis  of  mutual  attraction, 
and  to  do  certain  things :  print,  cook,  etc.,  which  he  seeks  to  guide 
and  utilize.^ 

A  more  elaborate  and  apparently  successful  form  of  self-gov- 
ernment in  the  grades  is  that  of  the  New  York  City  grammar  master, 
Cronson,  who  organized  the  four  upper  grades,  comprising  some  four 
hundred  children,  into  a  city,  of  which  each  class  was  a  borough,  and 
all  together  constituted  a  nation.  His  book'  is  the  most  stimulating 
and  interesting  of  all  the  literature  that  has  yet  appeared  on  self- 
government  for  the  public  grammar  school,  and  is  far  too  complex 
to  describe  adequately  here.  There  is  a  constitution,  by-laws,  legis- 
lative, executive,  and  judicial  functions,  borrowing  almost  every 
feature    from    city,    township,    State    and    national    administration. 

*  Children's  Ideas  of  Honor,  Ped.  Sem.,  Dec,  1906,  vol.  13,  pp.  509-513. 

'The  School  City;  report  on  the  system  of  civic  education  devised  by  Wilson 
L.  Gill.  Reprinted  from  the  Journal  of  the  Franklin  Institute,  Philadelphia, 
1903,  II.  p. 

'  Social  Education.     Boston,  Ginn  &  Co.,  1908,  300  p.    See  Chaps.  VI  and  VII. 

•Bernard  Cronson,  Pupil  Self-Government.     N.  Y.,  Macmillan,  1907,  107  p. 


MORAL    EDUCATION  305 

Boys  edit  papers,  make  and  audit  financial  reports,  conduct  charity 
agencies,  hospitals,  fresh-air  funds,  perhaps  wear  a  uniform,  some- 
times multiply  officials  so  that  there  are  few  privates  left,  have  rapid 
transition  of  office,  levy  and  raise  taxes,  have  elaborate  poHtical 
campaigns  with  debates  and  mass  meetings,  map  out  imaginary  cities 
with  parks,  fire,  health,  police,  educational,  and  penal  departments, 
show  plenty  of  partisanship;  and  all  this  work  is  said  to  give  much 
zest  to  the  study  of  history,  piarliamentary  law,  and  social  and  civic 
institutions  generally.  The  truant  squad  seems  particularly  effective 
in  a  largely  Italian  population.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  many 
boys  under  the  right  leaders  can  and  do  derive  much  advantage  from 
these  organizations,  but  there  is  always  need  of  wise  and  experienced 
guidance;  and  wherever  such  an  institution  succeeds  there  is  always 
bagk  of  it  some  person  with  insight  and  acquired  talent  for  this 
peculiar  work  and  giving  much  time  to  it.  It  is  thus  at  root  a  mode 
of  control  by  adults.  Usually  the  young  are  subjugated  and  led  by 
a  wiser  leader,  and  the  gang  spirit  is  sublimated. 

W.  B.  Forbush,'  than  whom  the  country  has  no  better  authority 
or  wiser  leader  in  this  field,  thinks  that  the  instincts  of  play  and 
friendship  which  animate  all  kinds  of  juvenile  organizations  arc  on 
the  whole  best  put  to  work  in  connection  with  nature  study,  field 
work,  woodcraft,  and  camping  out,  with  a  spirit  like  that  repre- 
sented by  the  better  part  of  Thompson  Seton's  Indian  work,  Baden 
Powell's  scouting  parties,  Y.  M.  C.  A.  camps,  and  the  farm  and  gar- 
den work  of  Doctors  Hodge,  Bigelow,  G.  E.  Johnson,  O.  J.  Kern, 
Rufus  Stanley,  and  the  Cornell  people.  Dr.  Forbush  has  catalogued 
nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  clubs  for  street  boys,  reaching  perhaps 
100,000  members,  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  reaches  twice  as  many.  When 
we  add  to  this  the  work  of  the  social  settlements,  the  churches,  the 
twenty-five  national  movements  for  the  uplift  of  boys,  we  realize 
how  extensive  this  work  now  is.  Mass  clubs,  which  began  forty 
years  ago,  need  to  be  broken  up  into  small  groups  if  there  are 
workers  enough,  and  yet  the  esprit  dc  corps  of  the  larger  group 
should  not  be  lost.  If  educational  or  religious  work  is  pushed  too 
far,  the  club  becomes  a  girls'  society,  so  that  the  rude  virtues  of  the 
gang  must  never  be  eliminated  or  the  club  will  share  the  fate  of  the 
famous  horse  in  myth  whose  fodder  was  reduced  a  few  grains  of 
oats  per  day  to  accustom  him  to  eat  less,  a  scheme  which  worked 
well  until  the  horse  died.  Boys  go  in  groups  even  to  revivals  and 
when  they  join  the  church  they  enter,  as  Coe  puts  it,  "  God's  gang." 
They  must  not  be  educated  to  become  "  perfect  ladies."  as  Forbush 
declares  he  was  at  first.  The  key-boys  must  be  picked  and  the  club 
raised  to  the  level  of  the  best  instead  of  being  allowed  to  sink  to  the 
level  of  the  worst,  as  it  tends  to  in  the  gang.  Frank  Parsons  and  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  are  doing  good  work  in  aiding  boys  to  a  wise  choice  of 
vocations.     The  question,  however,  will  not  down,  in  the  survey  of 

'  Boys'  Clul)S.    Ped.  Scm.,  Sept.,  1909,  vol.  16,  pp.  337-343. 
21 


3o6  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

all  these  activities,  whether  or  not  a  strong  man  could  not  do  better 
by  direct  personal  action  upon  the  boys,  or  at  least  whether  the  club 
should  obviate  that  and  whether  many  workers  do  not  oversocialize 
the  boy  at  the  expense  of  some  precious  factors  of  individuation. 
The  boys'  club  is  a  great  agency  in  breaking  down  the  barriers  of 
mutual  ignorance  between  adults  and  childhood  and  teaching  the 
former  the  dialect  of  childhood.  The  club  is  a  .necessary  supple- 
ment of  home,  school  and  church.  The  more  boys  are  really  under- 
stood, the  better  they  seem  to  be  at  heart,  at  least  as  they  can  be 
isolated  from  bad  environments. 

As  to  self-government  in  secondary  schools.  While 
formal  honor  or  self-government  schemes  are  almost  unknown 
in  normal  schools  beyond  bringing  the  faculty  and  students 
together  if  there  is  misunderstanding,  there  are  a  few  public 
high  schools,  still  more  private  academies,  manual  and  in- 
dustrial, and  most  of  all  military  schools  of  secondary  grade, 
that  have  tried  some  of  these  autonomous  schemes. 

The  advocates  of  these  schemes  illustrate  the  strong  drift 
which  is  characteristic  of  the  present  to  oversocialize  young 
people.  There  are  in  fact  two  elements  in  education,  proper 
balance  between  which  is  of  vital  consequence.  First  in  time 
if  not  in  importance  comes  the  evolution  of  personality,  the 
development  of  the  individual.  No  person  is  educated  until 
he  has  found  his  own  proprium  or  the  interest  by  which  he 
can  be  most  controlled,  kindled,  the  thing  for  which  he  has 
most  ability  and  can  do  best,  or  the  conviction  that  he  is  ready 
to  stand  by.  City  boys  more  than  those  from  the  country 
are  prone  to  think,  act,  judge,  in  masses  and  therefore  to  be- 
come all  alike.  The  large,  graded  class,  too,  tends  to  blunt 
and  efface  individuality,  which  is  the  most  precious  thing  in 
the  world.  The  self-governors  aid  this  process.  We  cannot 
be  too  frequently  reminded  that  no  two  people  are  alike,  that 
every  boy  needs  individual  treatment,  a  mentor,  adviser,  or 
some  one  else  to  study  him  to  find  what  vocation  he  is  best 
fitted  for.  Few  are  so  able  that  they  will  not  fail  if  they  do 
too  much  or  fall  into  the  wrong  niche ;  and  few  are  so  stupid 
that  they  will  not  succeed  if  they  find  their  right  niche  and 
limit  themselves  according  to  their  talent.  Education  of  old 
used  to  lay  great  stress  upon  periods  of  retreat,  meditation, 
solitude,  that  one  might  get  a  little  acquainted  with  oneself, 
which  in  our  age  young  people  know  nothing  of.     Until  one 


MORAL   EDUCATION  307 

has  once  had  the  experience  of  standing-  on  his  own  conviction 
against  that  of  his  fellows,  until  he  has  found  that  he  knows 
some  one  thing  that  no  one  else  does,  or  can  do  something 
unique  and  peculiar,  he  has  not  found  himself;  and  over- 
socialization  makes  young  people  to-day  drift  still  farther 
away  from  true  self-knowledge. 

The  term  "  pupil  and  student  self-government "  is  somewhat  non- 
descript. It  designates  an  amorphous  thing  which  might  be  measured 
on  several  scales,  viz.:  (i)  Up  and  down  the  grades.  Certain  forms 
of  it  are  found  in  university  and  college  and  students  have  had  no 
acquaintance  with  anything  of  the  kind  in  their  previous  course. 
Again,  Arnold,  of  Rugby,  governed  his  students  through  the  upper 
class  which  he  ruled  himself.  In  some  of  our  schemes  little  tots 
who  can  only  make  their  mark  in  the  lowest  primary  can  vote, 
although  illiterate  voting  is  excluded  in  our  republic.  (2)  These 
schemes  vary  immensely  in  elaborateness.  Sometimes  there  is  noth- 
ing but  a  small  committee  of  students  steered  by  members  of  the 
faculty,  or  the  principal,  or  teachers.  The  pupil  members  are  sup- 
posed to  influence  their  mates,  but  the  latter  are  not  affected.  While 
at  the  other  extreme  we  have  the  complete  state  with  almost  every 
institution  found  in  city  or  nation  represented.  (3)  The  topics 
considered  by  the  pupil  self -governors  have  a  wide  range.  In  the 
higher  academic  grades  the  government  often  deals  with  nothing 
save  cheating  in  examinations;  while  in  some  of  the  lower  grades 
every  civic  duty  and  many  matters  of  personal  morality  are  included. 
It  is  rather  curious  that  the  higher  up  the  grades  we  go,  the  less  the 
range  of  these  schemes  over  conduct.  We  should  suppose  it  would 
be  the  reverse.  While  space  has  only  three  dimensions,  self-govern- 
ment has  a  fourth,  viz.,  it  may  be  measured  by  its  departure  from  the 
gang.  The  street  boys'  club  is  the  first  step  away  from  it,  while  some 
of  the  purely  church  organizations  have  succeeded  in  depurating 
most  elements  of  the  gang;  and  in  proportion  as  they  do  so,  the 
organization  leads  rather  a  pallid  life,  because  leaders  forget  that 
this  is  the  stage  of  only  the  cruder  virtues,  and  that  boys  will  not  be 
made  into  a  girls*  society. 

In  public  high  schools  it  is  rare.  The  most  successful  attempt 
I  know  of  the  former  is  at  the  large  and  very  well-equipped  Poly- 
technic High  School  of  Los  Angeles,  which  trains  students  of  mature 
years  and  mostly  of  serious  purpose  for  their  work  in  life.  The 
scheme  originated  spontaneously  when  the  school  was  small  but  now 
works  well  with  two  thousand  pupils.  It  is  now  known  as  the  As- 
sociated Student  Body  Organizations,  the  membership  of  which  is 
composed  of  the  presidents  of  the  several  minor  organizations  and 
two  members  of  the  faculty  elected  by  it.  The  organizations  repre- 
sented are:  the  boys'  and  girls'  self-government  committee,  the 
scholarship   committee,   custodian   committee,    fire   department,   ath- 


3o8  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

letic  committee,  Ionian  society,  oratorical  society,  editors,  board  of 
control,  information  and  reception  committee,  and  musical  organiza- 
tions. The  purpose  of  this  higher  body  is  to  consider  all  questions 
referred  to  it  by  the  principal  or  any  student  club,  to  conduct  school 
elections,  formulate  rules  concerning  the  award  of  emblems  and 
conferring  of  honors;  yet  in  all  matters  the  principal  is  the  ruling 
power,  and  all  the  power  given  to  the  students  is  understood  to  come 
from  him.  A  detailed  constitution  regulates  the  qualifications  of 
officers  and  their  duties. 

Private  high  schools  have  in  some  instances  adopted  modified 
forms.  The  Hotchkiss  School  at  Lakeville,  Connecticut,  requires 
students  to  give  their  word  of  honor  to  observe  the  school  rules  in 
respect  to  smoking;  and  with  regard  to  this  the  method  seems  to 
work  well.  The  Branham  and  Hughes  School  in  Tennessee  has  a 
scheme  aiming  at  unity  of  action,  academic  pride,  and  definite  con- 
victions. The  principal's  rule  is  stern,  but  students'  opinion  and 
cooperation  are  sought,  especially  in  athletics.  The  Worcester 
Academy  has  a  board  of  monitors  centering  in  four  seniors  chosen 
by  the  faculty,  together  with  three  more  nominated  by  the  faculty 
and  elected  by  the  students.  This  board  reports  infringements  of 
rules  and  makes  recommendations  to  the  principal.  Every  scheme 
involving  detective  or  espionage  work  is  very  unpopular  here.  The 
scheme  works  best  where  there  are  military  features,  like  the  Marion 
Military  School  of  Alabama,  which  has  a  system  of  self-government 
much  like  that  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  with  a  constitution 
that  vests  authority  in  a  faculty  council  and  a  corps  of  students  or 
commons,  including  all  members  of  the  school  not  in  the  council. 
The  judicial  department  consists  of  a  supreme  court  and  a  lower 
court,  the  former  sitting  in  such  cases  as  lying,  cheating  at  examina- 
tions, drinking,  licentiousness,  and  participation  in  any  combinations 
against  self-government ;  while  the  lower  court  sits  on  offenses  of  less 
grade.  In  the  Bingham  School,  now  in  its  Ii6th  year,  each  student 
solemnly  pledges  as  a  gentleman  to  abstain  "  from  having  anything 
intoxicating  in  his  possession  or  under  his  control,  from  handling 
an  intoxicant  belonging  to  another,  or  from  going  into  a  drinking 
saloon,  from  having  any  deadly  weapons,  including  cartridges,  in 
his  possession  or  under  his  control,  or  from  handling  a  deadly  weapon 
belonging  to  another,  or  from  using  the  school  arms  except  under 
orders;  from  hazing  (as  defined  by  the  faculty)  in  any  shape  or 
form,  directly  or  indirectly."  This  is  defined  as  "  not  letting  a  com- 
rade and  his  things  alone  "  and  includes  causing  the  comrade  to 
fag.  All  examination  papers  must  be  accompanied  by  a  statement 
upon  honor  that  no  aid  is  given  or  received;  while  candidates  for 
athletic  honors  pledge  themselves  to  obey  the  captain  and  coach  and 
to  abstain  from  immorality  and  tobacco  during  the  athletic  season. 
In  the  Virginia  Military  Institute  the  discipline  is  strictly  military. 
The  cadets  are  taught  that  courage  and  personal  honor  are  the  first 
essential  to  the  soldier.     The  associates  of  a  dishonest  cadet  would 


MORAL   EDUCATION  309 

report  the  fact  to  the  authorities  but  they  would  not  report  an  im- 
morality.    This  is  typical  of  various  other  schools. 


The  very  essence  of  docility  is  submission  to  authority. 
This  is  one  of  the  primary  instincts  of  all  gregarious  and  social 
animals.  This  is  seen  in  the  savage  tribe,  the  gang,  the 
athletic  team,  in  fagging  and  hazing,  and  in  military  systems. 
Boys  crave  leadership  and  yield  their  own  wills  implicitly  to 
coercion,  if  only  they  feel  it  wise  and  benign.  They  obey 
commands  and  grow  thereby  in  trust  and  loyalty  to  persons, 
which  Royce  has  shown  to  be  so  fundamental  to  every  social 
virtue.  They  are  innate  hero-worshipers  and  followers,  as 
if  they  craved  a  master  and  would  make  one,  even  of  cheap 
material,  if  they  failed  to  find  him  at  hand.  They  will  do  and 
be  almost  anything  with  amazing  plasticity  for  those  whom 
they  really  respect  and  admire.  From  such  they  take  orders 
on  faith  and  without  question.  This  means  that  their  very 
nature  and  needs  cry  out  for  drill,  discipline,  Dressiir  and 
habituation  before  their  reason  is  developed  enough  to  justify 
what  is  required  of  them.  This  keeps  the  soul  open,  receptive, 
growing.  If  thoroughly  trained  and  broken  into  right  usages 
when  they  are  young,  they  will,  when  they  attain  years  of 
insight,  rejoice  to  find  that  their  very  automatism  does  so  much 
and  so  well  for  them.  Plato  would  flog  young  people  prone 
to  reason  about  moral  questions ;  and  Aristotle  thought  all  mat- 
ters pertaining  to  politics  and  statecraft  the  supremest  func- 
tion, to  be  reserved  for  the  wise  and  most  mature  men ;  it  was 
for  him  that  in  which  all  education  culminated.  To  do  duties 
comes  first  in  the  apprenticeship  of  life,  and  is  the  only  war- 
rant for  demanding  rights.  Our  training  often  reverses  this 
and  makes  the  young  clamorous  of  their  rights  and  neglectful 
of  their  duties.  Now,  were  self-government  for  pre-pu- 
bescents  in  the  grammar  grades  desirable,  our  survey  shows 
that  it  is  almost  unrecognized  in  American  normal  schools, 
so  that  one  fourth  of  our  teachers  who  enter  tlic  profession 
actually  do  so  totally  unfitted  to  inaugurate  or  direct  it. 

After  these  general  and  special  reasons,  I  cannot  be  so 
very  ardently  desirous  of  a  speedy,  general  diffusion  of  the  sys- 
tem into  the  grades,  much  as  I  admire  and  commend  the 
results   sporadically   attained,    for   I    fear   that,   witli    all    its 


3IO  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

triumphs,  there  is  danger  of  some  loss  in  the  general  spirit  of 
docihty  and  obedience  to  authority.  I  fear  these  systems  must 
be  further  safeguarded  to  prevent  some  weakening  of  the 
wholesome  and  fundamental  instinct  of  unreflecting  loyalty  to 
commands  without  precocious,  casuistic  ratiocination  concern- 
ing matters  the  juvenile  mind  is  not  mature  enough  to  cope 
with  without  danger  of  forcing  and  overtaxing  the  intelligence 
at  the  expense  of  the  more  basal  discipline  of  the  will.  Nature 
inclines  childhood  to  be  happy  and  careless  and  to  seek  un- 
limited freedom  in  order  to  learn  wisdom  at  first-hand  by  more 
or  less  personal  experience  with  folly,  and  to  postpone  the  day 
of  assuming  the  control  of  adult  institutions  which  tend  to  rob 
the  soul  of  boys  of  its  gamey  flavor,  to  reduce  the  capacity  for 
originality,  and  to  reverse  the  good  old  Bible  adage  that  states 
that  we  must  learn  to  rule  ourselves  before  learning  to  rule 
cities.  On  a  good  horse  ranch,  thoroughbred  colts  are  early 
broken  into  trotting  with  their  utmost  speed  at  times,  and  for 
the  rest  roam  the  pastures  freely  until  they  are  quite  mature. 
I  confess  that  these  little  grammar-school  statesmen  and 
women,  mayors  and  mayoresses,  judges,  and  aldermen  and 
women,  in  knickerbockers  and  short  skirts,  do  not  seem  to  me 
to  be  real  boys  and  girls.  As  a  rule  their  published  photo- 
graphs do  not  attract  me  to  make  their  personal  acquaintance. 
Are  they  not  missing  something  precious  and  basal  that  be- 
longs to  their  stage  of  life  and  which  cannot  be  given  later? 
Boys  of  this  age  are  capable  of  almost  any  folly ;  but  they  are 
given  not  only  the  burden  of  responsibility  for  their  own  con- 
duct, which  should  come  slowly  and  late,  but  also  for  that  of 
others.  Hence,  so  far  as  I  have  observed,  they  sometimes 
tend  to  become  precocious  with  their  factitious  authority; 
others  are  a  little  burdened  and  anxious;  some  feel  it  to  be 
unreal,  a  little  like  the  paper  money  of  Boy  City,  valid  only 
within  the  institution,  and  not  to  be  taken  too  seriously ;  while 
there  are  a  few,  especially  those  not  officials,  but  only  privates, 
who  remain  rebels  at  heart,  ready  to  revolt  and  assert  their 
feral  nature  if  good  opportunity  invites.  Is  all  this  better 
than  unquestioning  obedience  to  wiser  elders?  Again,  at  an 
age  when  manhood  begins  to  assert  itself,  is  it  good  for  boys 
and  their  allegiance  to  school  to  rule  and  vote  with  and  be 
under  girls?     Are  such  schools  training  suflfragettes,  and  is 


MORAL   EDUCATION  311 

this  the  best  training-  for  future  mothers  and  housewives,  or 
does  it  tend  to  obHterate  sex  distinctions  which  God  and 
Nature  have  estabhshed?  A  captain  and  mihtary  atmosphere 
would  suit  this  stage  of  development  better.  Again,  true  de- 
mocracy and  republicanism  came  very  late  in  the  world's 
history  and  are  for  fully  matured  men,  while  if  there  is  any- 
thing at  all  in  the  recapitulatory  theory,  children  of  this  age 
are  still  in  the  monarchical  stage  of  life,  and  need  to  be  put 
through  the  paces  and  antics  of  a  stage,  where  they  are  really 
henchmen,  subject  to  the  dominion  either  of  the  boy  leader 
or  of  the  man  who  is  the  power  behind  the  throne.  So  difficult 
is  this  form  of  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and 
for  the  people,  that  we  may  seriously  ask  ourselves  to-day  if 
we  mature  American  citizens  have  yet  learned  the  arts  and 
acquired  all  the  virtues  involved  in  self-government  to  such  a 
degree  that  their  success  on  our  shores  is  finally  assured,  so 
long  as  municipal  and  national  corruption  are  so  rife.  Is  our 
legal  age  of  majority,  which  brings  the  right  to  vote,  too  late? 
And  do  not  boy  methods  of  election  make  the  boys  who  are 
still  in  the  gang  stage  wiser  in  the  methods  of  the  boss  and 
expose  them  to  adopting  the  spirit  of  henchmen  and  followers? 
I  fear  that  in  many  juvenile  organizations  other  things  are 
really  learned  than  the  august  duty  of  citizenship  "  casting  with 
unpurchased  hand  the  vote  that  shakes  the  turrets  of  the  land." 
In  fine,  then,  my  plan  for  pre-adolescence  would  be  a  touch, 
but  not  too  much,  of  self-government.  We  might  organize  an 
upper  class  or  two,  for  Arnold  accomplished  much  of  his  re- 
forms through  the  highest  class  alone ;  but  the  organization 
should  not  be  too  elaborate.  We  might  observe  and  utilize 
social  groups  in  the  lower  grades  and  go  a  little  ways  with 
Colin  Scott ;  but  in  this  work  we  should  carefully  follow  quite 
as  much  as  lead  the  children ;  and  for  the  rest  we  may  well 
wait,  watch  and  perpend,  and  above  all,  study  and  visit  per- 
sonally, if  possible,  every  school  where  special  efforts  in  this 
direction  are  made  and  get  behind  the  scenes  or  the  printed 
page,  talk  with  the  l)oys,  observe  their  real  attitude  both  in 
conducting  their  organizations  and  outside,  nnd  be  judicial 
a  while  longer,  ready  and  ojxmi  minded  to  follow  just  as  far 
as  we  are  wholly  and  heartily  convinced;  for  witliout  whole- 
souled  enthusiasm  and  faith  we  can  do  nothing  here.     But  let 


312  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

us  not  forget  that,  in  the  moral  regimen  of  boys,  there  must 
always  be  left  ample  space  for  unexplainable  commands  and 
implicit  obedience.  These  schemes  need  a  male  master  rather 
than  a  female  teacher  at  the  helm.  While  I  am  not  a  violent 
antisuffragist,  I  think  that  in  the  present  stage  of  our  social 
evolution  man  has  more  experience  and  more  natural  zest  for 
politics  than  woman.  At  any  rate,  boys  of  this  age  will  not 
take  kindly  to  female  leadership  in  practical  civics.  I  think 
we  must,  however,  conclude  that  the  success  already  achieved 
constitutes  a  prima  facie  case  for  further  observation,  which 
challenges  all  those  who  are  interested  in  moral  education,  and 
that  w^e  must  all  of  us  be  ready  to  lay  aside  all  prejudices  and 
preconceptions  until  convinced;  accept  new  light  and  walk  in 
new  ways,  as  soon  as  w^e  are  fully  persuaded,  no  matter  how 
old  or  how  firmly  anchored  we  now  are  in  current  theories  and 
practices. 

Passing  now  to  colleges.  It  may  be  well  first  to  glance  at 
the  natural  status  of  the  minds  of  male  and  female  collegians 
concerning  matters  where  honor  and  self-government  are  most 
involved.  We  have  two  studies  that  bear  immediately  upon 
this  topic. 

Earl  Barnes'  analyzed  written  returns  from  65  male  and  59 
female  students  in  three  colleges  as  to  whether  they  would  report 
students  who  had  stolen  an  examination  paper  from  the  printer  and 
used  it  in  advance,  and  found  that  30  per  cent  of  the  men  and  29 
per  cent  of  the  women  would  not  do  so,  while  43  per  cent  of  each 
sex  would  not  report  ordinary  cheating  in  examination.  If,  however, 
the  penalty  was  expulsion  rather  than  loss  of  credits,  64  per  cent  of 
the  men,  and  67  per  cent  of  the  women  would  say  No  to  the  first, 
and  75  per  cent  of  the  men  and  67  per  cent  of  the  women  would  say 
No  to  the  second  question.  The  reasons  given  for  silence  are  that 
it  is  the  professor's  business,  or  not  the  student's,  that  tale-bearing 
is  low,  that  it  really  affects  only  the  culprit,  is  useless,  would  make 
enemies,  etc.  The  reasons  for  reporting,  also  in  the  order  of  fre- 
quency, are  that  cheating  wrongs  honest  students,  hurts  the  institu- 
tion, makes  the  concealer  an  accessory,  is  a  duty  to  society  and  to 
the  culprit.  Thus  personal  precedes  and  probably  prepares  for  social 
ethics;  if  so,  the  former  must  have  a  period  sufficient  to  lay  founda- 
tions. The  motives  of  those  who  would  not  report,  be  it  remem- 
bered, are  the  same  that  make  democracies   slow  to  take  up   arms 

*  Student  Honor;  a  Study  in  Cheating.  Inlernat.  Jour,  of  Ethics,  1903-4,  vol. 
14,  pp.  481-488. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  313 

against  public  abuses,  as  here  many  know  them  but  lack  the  courage 
to  do  so.  This  inevitably  raises  the  question  whether  the  teachers' 
efforts  to  bring  students  of  all  grades  to  their  views  concerning 
examinations  do  not  really  result  in  blunting,  instead  of  sharpening, 
the  sense  of  honor. 

Dr.  A.  Tanner  *  collected  sincere  answers  to  very  personal  ques- 
tions in  440  written  returns  from  girl  students  in  twelve  colleges, 
and  found  that  40  per  cent  of  the  girls  kept  their  money  if  the  street- 
car conductor  failed  to  ask  them  for  the  fare.  Just  half  would  tell 
the  teacher  beforehand  if  they  were  unprepared,  and  the  other  half 
would  run  the  risk.  Sixty-seven  per  cent  would  bluff,  if  partially 
prepared  and  were  called  on  to  recite ;  69  per  cent  would  avoid  a 
girl  who  cheated  in  examination  so  as  not  to  have  to  report  her; 
where  the  honor  system  prevailed,  52  per  cent  would  report  a  cheater ; 
50  per  cent  would  exaggerate  to  give  zest  to  a  story  or  conversation ; 
65  per  cent  would  tell  a  white  lie  to  save  people's  feelings ;  several 
say  that  love  is  of  more  value  than  truth ;  only  14  per  cent  would 
take  another's  plot  on  which  to  write  a  supposedly  original  story; 
while  37  per  cent  would  tell  a  credulous  girl  outlandish  stories;  and 
21  per  cent  would  use  ponies  or  interlinears ;  27  per  cent  would 
use  a  point  incidentally  seen  on  another's  examination  paper;  54  per 
cent  would  permit  a  person  to  have  an  ungrounded  favorable  opinion 
of  themselves;  if  they  cheated,  57  per  cent  would  deem  it  more 
honorable  to  do  so  openly  than  secretly.  If  these  returns  are  sincere 
and  typical,  as  the  author  claims,  they  are  very  significant. 

In  colleg-e  grades  most  efforts  at  student  autonomy  have 
been  directed  against  the  evils  illustrated  in  the  above  inquiries. 
Anna  L.  Kranz  has  lately  gathered  her  data  from  thirty-three 
institutions  of  collegiate  rank  that  have  some  kind  of  honor 
system,  hardly  two  being  alike,  but  varying  with  the  conditions 
of  each  institution.  There  is  generally  a  student  senate, 
usually  elected  by  students,  but  sometimes  by  the  faculty. 
The  members  of  tliis  board  vary  from  five  to  fifteen,  and  their 
authority  ranges  all  the  way  from  simple  espionage  of  conduct 
on  the  campus  and  dormitories  to  suspension  and  expulsion. 
Often  the  code  applies  only  to  examinations  and  recitations. 
Where  it  includes  more,  plagiarism  before  literary  societies 
and  college  magazines  is  most  often  provided  for.  then  comes 
conduct  outside  the  classes  and  miscellaneous  conduct.  There 
is  usually  some  kind  of  constitution  regulating  elections, 
.specifying  jurisdiction,  method  of  procedure,  punishment  of 

'  The  College  Woman's  Code  of  Honor.  Pcd.  Scm.,  March,  1906,  vol.  13,  pp. 
104-117. 


314  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

the  guilty.  College  sentiment  and  tradition  in  this  matter 
vary  very  greatly  in  different  institutions.  The  history  of 
honor  systems  has  almost  nothing  to  do  with  those  existing 
systems  which  have  been  created  ad  hoc  by  some  enterprising 
president  or  by  others,  although  to  this  rule  there  are  two  well- 
known  exceptions. 

The  first  is  the  University  of  South  Carolina,  where  an  honor  sys- 
tem began  in  1805,  and  the  University  of  Virginia  in  1842,  although 
the  University  of  Illinois  had  one  in  1868,  Maine  State  College  in 
1875,  and  Amherst  in  1883.  The  honor  system  in  Virginia  is  the  best 
instance  of  a  natural  spontaneous  growth  of  student  government  which 
this  country  affords  and  has  set  the  fashion  for  others.  In  recent 
decades  it  has  come  to  leaven  the  entire  spirit  of  the  university  and 
has  set  patterns  for  many  imitations,  especially  in  the  South,  where 
the  appeal  to  the  sentiment  of  honor  has  been  far  more  effective  than 
in  the  North,  owing  to  the  old  cavalier  spirit  of  which  the  duel  is  the 
baser  offshoot.  In  founding  the  University  of  Virginia,  Jefferson 
himself  laid  great  stress  upon  pride  of  character,  dread  of  disgrace 
and  humiliation.  Professor  Thornton,  in  his  admirable  discussions, 
shows  that  five  unique  influences  have  made  this  scheme  success- 
ful. First,  the  architectural  arrangement  of  the  dormitories,  each 
room  opening  directly  onto  a  long  piazza,  which  was  also  a  walk 
around  the  quadrangle,  so  that  espionage  was  almost  impossible. 
Second,  a  strong  sentiment  that  testimony  from  students  must  be 
voluntary.  Third,  unlimited  freedom  of  students  in  selecting  their 
own  residence  and  courses.  Fourth,  the  mildness  of  the  penal  codes, 
which  forbade  the  faculty  to  expel  the  students  save  for  dueling  or  to 
suspend  them  save  for  contumacy  or  disorder,  and  which  had  other- 
wise only  the  power  to  reprove.  Fifth,  the  reference  of  all  minor 
matters  to  a  board  of  six  student  censors  named  by  the  faculty  who 
should  investigate  and  report  the  findings  and  the  penalties.  This 
was  revolutionary  eighty-six  years  ago,  when  college  discipline  else- 
where was  severe.  Soon  after  the  University  opened,  as  might  be 
expected,  there  was  an  open  conflict  between  professors  and  students, 
with  much  rioting.  The  faculty  were  helpless  and  appealed  to  the 
visitors,  who  appealed  to  the  honor  of  the  student  body,  who  re- 
sponded, and  peace  followed  for  a  time.  The  faculty  found  by 
bitter  experience  that  the  "  stricter  the  laws  the  more  numerous 
their  infractions,  and  the  sterner  the  discipline,  the  more  rebellious 
the  subjects,"  so  that  these  hot-headed  young  Southerners  became 
defiant,  challenged  the  faculty,  and  sympathized  with  misdoing. 
Examination  papers  were  submitted  not  even  in  the  handwriting  of 
the  student.  This  misrule  culminated  in  1840  with  the  murder  of 
the  chairman  of  the  faculty.  This  brought  horror  and  indignation 
and  a  reaction.  The  better  students  came  forward,  and  in  1842  a 
resolution  was  passed  that  henceforth  to  all   written  examinations 


MORAL   EDUCATION  3^5 

each  candidate  attach  a  statement  that  he  had  not  given,  to  which 
latet-  was  added  nor  received,  help.  This  became  the  magna  charta 
of  the  University.  The  honor  pledge  is  rarely  broken,  and  if  it  is, 
the  students  deal  with  it  in  a  very  summary  way.  Each  department 
was  organized  with  its  officers  to  constitute  an  honor  committee, 
with  no  faculty  representation.  The  offending  student  is  asked  to 
leave  the  University,  though  if  he  wishes  a  public  trial  he  may  appeal 
to  five  alumni ;  but  the  guilty  student  rarely  makes  this  appeal.  Men 
have  been  expelled  here  for  plagiarism,  lying,  cheating  at  cards, 
refusing  to  pay  honest  debts,  insolence  to  ladies.  Curiously  enough, 
this  honor  code  refuses  to  take  notice  of  drunkenness,  injuring  prop- 
erty, gambling,  betting,  incontinence,  cutting  lectures,  or  idleness. 
Expulsion  brings  a  stigma  which  a  man  can  rarely  live  down  at  home 
or  abroad.  The  students  consider  that  the  honor  of  their  class  is  at 
stake.  They  hold  that  the  honor  of  the  class  is  in  the  keeping  of 
each  member  of  it. 

The  honor  system  in  South  Carolina  has  a  yet  longer  history  but 
has  less  influence.  When  it  was  established  in  1805,  one  regulation 
of  government  was  "  the  rewards  and  punishments  of  this  institu- 
tion shall  be  addressed  to  the  sense  of  duty,  to  the  principle  of  honor 
and  shame."  Twenty  years  later.  President  Cooper  remonstrated 
with  the  trustees,  who  wished  to  make  the  discipline  stricter,  that  the 
spirit  of  mildness  and  remonstrance  and  treating  the  students  as 
gentlemen  worthy  of  confidence  "  had  succeeded  so  well  that  the 
faculty  had  no  good  reason  to  change  it."  As  early  as  1836,  the 
following  method  of  procedure  was  adopted.  If  there  was  a  strong 
presumption  that  a  student  was  guilty,  he  was  summoned  before  the 
faculty  to  answer  yes  or  no,  but  need  not  incriminate  any  other. 
If  he  said  no,  that  was  accepted  as  prima  facie  evidence  of  innocence, 
but  if  it  appeared  later  that  he  had  told  a  falsehood,  he  was  expelled 
for  lying.  These  students,  though  a  little  turbulent  and  high  spirited, 
will  not  tolerate  dishonesty  in  their  mates.  Anyone  suspected  may 
be  asked,  "  Did  you  have  anything  to  do  with  the  affair?"  and  his 
yes  or  no  is  accepted.  The  college  to-day  "  has  supreme  regard  to 
the  protection  of  the  honor  of  the  student  and  of  the  college." 

Other  colleges  having  an  honor  system  may  be  divided  into  two 
groups.  In  one.  the  honor  board  has  no  representative  of  the  faculty 
and  acts  independently  of  it  and  of  the  president ;  in  the  other, 
the  faculty  are  represented.  At  least  twenty-three  colleges  belong 
to  the  first  group.  At  Princeton,  e.  g.,  the  honor  committee  is  com- 
posed of  the  presidents  of  the  four  classes  with  an  added  member 
from  the  two  higher  classes,  six  in  all.  The  recommendations  of  this 
committee  to  the  faculty  are  usually  carried  out,  even  recommenda- 
tions for  expulsions.  Vanderhilt  has  an  honor  connnittee  elected  by 
the  students  but  with  no  authority  given  it  by  the  faculty.  If  a 
student  is  guilty  of  cheating  he  usually  leaves  the  institution  without 
appeal.  Tulane  has  an  academic  board  comprising  the  presidents, 
vice-presidents,    and    secretaries   of   each    class    which    report    their 


3i6  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

findings  and  recommendations  to  the  faculty ;  and  they  are  usually 
sustained.  These  are  typical.  At  Lawrence  College,  Wisconsin, 
there  is  a  council  of  four  seniors,  three  juniors,  two  sophomores,  and 
one  freshman,  with  the  president  of  the  university  club,  of  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.,  and  the  Y.  W.  C.  A.,  which  acts  on  all  cases  reported 
and  regulates  dormitory  affairs.  In  the  University  of  Mississippi  a 
council  of  honor  of  fifteen  members  represents  all  departments.  At 
the  University  of  Georgia  members  are  elected  from  the  classes.  The 
member  who  has  served  the  longest  in  the  board  presides.  There  are 
secret  sessions  and  a  jury  in  cases  of  cheating.  A  defendant  may 
conduct  his  own  case  or  employ  a  lawyer.  The  faculty  constitute  a 
court  of  appeal.  Beloit  has  an  honor  committee  of  nine  students.  In 
Washington  and  Lee  there  is  a  committee  of  nine  elected  by  the  stu- 
dents which  acts  as  a  grand  jury,  formulates  charges,  directs  a  formal 
trial  before  a  jury  of  students  which  they  select  and  which  has  power 
to  act.  Appeal  to  the  faculty  is  possible  but  rare.  At  the  Wharton 
School  of  Finance  and  Commerce,  Pennsylvania,  there  is  a  similar 
system  which  applies  only  to  examinations  and  only  for  the  first 
year.  At  Washington  and  Jefferson  College  there  is  a  system  with  a 
detailed  constitution  with  power  to  dismiss,  subject  to  the  faculty 
if  the  appeal  is  taken  to  them. 

Somewhat  different  from  these  are  statements  that  involve  a 
pledge,  like  that  of  Simmons  College  for  girls,  which  requires  a  state- 
ment at  the  end  of  examinations  that  no  help  was  given  or  received. 
Amherst  requires  the  declaration  on  all  written  examinations,  essays, 
and  orations :  "  I  pledge  my  honor  that  I  have  neither  given  nor  re- 
ceived aid."  Violations  are  dealt  with  by  a  committee  of  six,  the 
presidents  of  each  of  the  four  classes  and  one  other  junior  and  senior. 
The  students  of  the  University  of  North  Carolina  sign  a  similar 
pledge  enforced  by  a  university  council,  who  may  dismiss  the  student. 
The  University  of  Cincinnati  has  a  system  of  student  government 
with  a  committee  elected  at  large.  Their  duty  is  to  investigate 
complaints,  judge  of  the  penalty  and  recommend  it  to  the  president, 
who  usually  carries  it  out.  Cornell  has  a  scheme  of  student  control 
rather  than  an  honor  system  in  three  of  its  colleges.  Students  may 
vote  each  year  whether  they  will  adopt  the  articles  or  not.  The 
student  guilty  a  second  time  is  notified  to  leave  the  University  within 
five  days.    If  he  does  not  do  so,  the  case  is  reported  to  the  faculty. 

In  the  above  and  in  a  number  of  other  colleges  the  honor  boards 
are  composed  entirely  of  students  voluntarily  chosen  from  the 
student  body.  The  type  in  which  the  faculty  are  represented  we  see, 
e.  g.,  in  Hampden-Sidney,  where  the  president  of  the  college  calls 
the  council  and  brings  matters  to  its  attention.  In  the  Pacific  Uni- 
versity, Oregon,  the  council  considers  all  matters  of  student  conduct. 
This  council  is  composed  of  four  students  elected  by  the  student 
body  at  large  and  three  members  of  the  faculty  appointed  by  the 
president.  A  similar  organization  regulates  athletics,  intercollegiate 
debating,  and  oratory.     This  scheme  is  now  in  its  seventh  year.    At 


MORAL    EDUCATION  317 

Wesleyan  the  honor  system  involves  signing  a  pledge  with  a  report 
of  violations  to  the  president,  who  appoints  a  student  committee  to 
investigate  and  report  their  findings  and  recommendations.  For 
sixteen  years  there  has  been  a  conference  committee  of  faculty  and 
students,  in  which  all  the  college  organizations  are  represented. 

In  Oberlin,  while  there  is  no  formal  organized  honor  system,  the 
faculty  and  president  are  aided  by  two  organizations  for  conference, 
one  for  men  and  one  for  women.  In  Trinity,  there  is  a  self-per- 
petuating senior  honor  society  of  seven  or  eight  members  which  is 
a  medium  of  communication  between  students  and  faculty  in  all 
matters  of  common  interest.  At  Brown,  while  all  responsibility  as 
to  honesty  in  college  work  is  laid  on  the  faculty,  conduct  in  athletics 
is  laid  on  the  athletic  board  of  the  students  elected  from  the  three 
upper  classes.  At  Bryn  Mawr  there  is  a  self-government  associa- 
tion regelating  the  conduct  of  students  outside  the  classroom,  of 
which  every  student  is  ipso  facto  a  member,  but  the  proctor  system 
is  rehed  on  in  classrooms  and  in  examinations.  Many  institutions 
rely,  as  their  catalogues  state,  largely  on  the  sense  of  honor  of  the 
student  without  any  definite  organization.  The  student  is  invoked  to 
meet  the  faculty  with  candor.  There  is  a  distinct  understanding  "  that 
the  students  are  responsible  to  keep  up  the  moral  tone "  or  tradi- 
tional high  standard  of  college  men  in  honor,  manliness,  self-respect, 
consideration  for  the  rights  of  others,  etc.  Boston  University  de- 
pends upon  "  a  fair  but  not  too  paternal  oversight "  and  a  wholesome 
public  opinion  among  the  students.  The  University  of  Montana  re- 
ports a  high  standard  of  honor  which  is  carefully  guarded  and  pro- 
tected and  especially  aflfects  athletics. 

The  larger  number  of  American  colleges,  nevertheless,  are 
still  governed  essentially  by  faculty  supervision.  In  several  of 
these  the  honor  system  is  reported  to  have  been  tried  and 
broken  down  or  been  outvoted.  Monitors  and  proctors  are 
used.  The  faculty  assumes  all  responsibility.  Various  rep- 
resentatives from  such  colleges  report,  however,  dissatisfaction 
with  existing  conditions.  Often  classes  request  an  honor 
system  which  has  been  tried  for  a  time.  At  Dartmouth  the 
students  have  twice  discussed  it,  but  each  time  decided  that, 
however  good  it  might  l^e  theoretically,  it  was  not  advisable 
practically.  In  a  few  cases  the  authorities  of  the  college  want 
it,  but  the  students  do  not. 

Let  us  listen  to  its  critics.  The  Dean  of  Wabash  College  writes: 
"  Personally,  I  have  been  opposed  to  trying  the  scht-nu-  as  I  have 
never  felt  that  it  was  desirable  to  turn  over  to  inexperienced  students 
the  management  or  any  other  part  of  the  college  which  is  usually  so 


3i8  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

trying  to  members  of  the  faculty,  even  after  many  years  of  serv- 
ice." President  C.  F.  Thwing  ^  while  admitting  that  student  self- 
government  has  lessened  the  antagonism  between  faculty  and 
students,  and  has  made  an  end  of  the  old  in  loco  parentis  ideals  of 
government,  thinks  love  of  novelty  gives  much  of  its  charm  to 
student  autonomy.  He  holds  that  the  machinery  used  is  often 
"heavy  and  cumbersome  and  the  process  of  its  working  laborious. 
Where  self-government  by  students  seems  to  be  wise  and  easy  the 
process  is  gained  quite  as  readily  by  the  efforts  of  the  faculty,  and 
in  colleges  in  which  governing  is  complicated  the  difficulty  does  not 
seem  to  be  removed  through  its  transfer  to  the  students."  The 
President  of  a  Connecticut  institution  thinks  a  good  many  things 
may  be  dealt  with  advantageously  by  conferring  with  the  students. 
But  he  says,  "  Of  course  I  should  be  very  far  from  approving  any 
system  by  which  the  government  of  a  college  was  in  any  sense 
turned  over  to  undergraduates.  This  is  and  must  be  vested  in  the 
faculty  and  the  faculty  must  show  themselves  competent  to  enforce 
the  law  by  penalty  when  necessary.  Professor  L.  B.  R.  Briggs,  long 
Dean  of  Harvard  College,  in  an  article  on  college  honor  in  the 
'Atlantic  Monthly,  1901,  vol.  88,  pp.  483-488,  objects  to  the  honor  sys- 
tem "  as  nursing  a  false  sensitiveness  that  resents  the  kind  of  super- 
vision which  everybody  must  sooner  or  later  accept  and  as  taking  from 
the  degree  some  part  of  its  sanction."  The  Secretary  of  Harvard 
College  writes :  "  The  so-called  honor  system  has  never  commended 
itself  to  either  the  faculty  or  the  students  of  Harvard  College  suffi- 
ciently to  procure  a  trial  of  the  system  here.  In  the  first  place,  it  is 
evident  that  in  any  large  and  heterogeneous  body  of  students  such 
as  is  to  be  found  in  any  large  university  there  would  inevitably  be 
found  a  small  number  of  persons  whose  honor  is  not  to  be  trusted 
under  any  system.  To  Harvard  students  the  responsibility  for  de- 
tecting and  punishing  the  off^enses  of  this  small  number  would  be 
wholly  unwelcome.  They  regard  the  function  of  the  college  officers 
in  supervising  examinations  as  inoffensive  and  as  a  valuable  guaran- 
tee of  the  integrity  and  fairness  with  which  examinations  are  con- 
ducted. Moreover,  it  is  believed  that  under  a  system  which 
encourages  students  to  believe  that  a  signed  statement  at  the  end  of 
their  examination  papers  to  the  effect  that  they  have  not  cheated 
puts  them  any  more  upon  their  honor  than  they  would  otherwise  be 
is  not  calculated  to  produce  a  really  fine  sense  of  what  honor  is. 
Precautions  taken  by  a  university  to  insure  the  integrity  of  the 
examinations,  like  the  precautions  taken  by  a  bank  to  secure  their 
safety  in  cashing  checks  for  the  public,  are  valued  by  all  honest  men 
and  are  obnoxious  only  to  evil  doers.  The  presence  of  a  proctor  in 
an  examination  room  not  only  tends  to  prevent  cheating  but  it 
enables  honest   students   to   make   legitimate   communications — such 

'  History  of  Higher  Education  in  America,  N.  Y.,  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  i9o6> 
501  P- 


MORAL   EDUCATION  319 

as  borrowing  a  pencil,  asking  time — without  the  appearance  of  evil, 
a  thing  which  all  honest  men  wish  to  avoid." 


Thus  it  would  seem  that  most  institutions  that  have  tried 
either  the  honor  or  self-government  scheme,  approve  them, 
and  this  would  indicate  that  it  might  be  indefinitely  extended. 
It  must,  however,  be  carefully  adjusted  to  individual  colleges 
and  localities.  No  scheme  will  be  found  that  every  student 
will  support.  The  spirit  of  honor  should  always  be  appealed 
to  rather  than  detailed  law ;  and  the  reputation  of  the  institu- 
tion should  be  involved.  The  system  should  have  the  hearty 
confidence  and  support  of  both  faculty  and  students,  and  should 
not  be  a  compromise  measure.  Its  beginning,  at  least,  and 
probably  its  working  will  largely  depend  upon  some  personal- 
ity; and  discretion  and  patience  will  be  needed  for  all. 

One  of  the  great  but  rarely  mentioned  advantages  of  col- 
lege self-government,  especially  where  the  faculty  is  repre- 
sented on  the  student  board  of  control,  is  the  interchange  of 
ideas,  not  only  on  the  points  involved,  but  in  the  larger  field 
of  intercourse  generally  between  students  and  professors 
whereby  each  learns  much  about  the  other.  It  enables  in- 
structors to  understand  and  appreciate  not  only  the  students' 
points  of  view,  but  is  a  good  school  to  teach  them  the  nature 
of  youth,  while  the  latter  learn  by  contagion  from  their  elders 
to  take  larger  views  of  college  and  of  life.  Better  yet,  and 
where  the  faculty  are  not  represented  and  are  not  even  a  higher 
court  of  appeal,  student  self-government  enables  upper  class- 
men and  women  to  influence  and  educate  the  lower  classes. 
Much  of  this  kind  of  work  must  always  be  going  on  as  the 
student  classes  come  and  go  if  any  system  is  to  succeed.  Class 
and  even  department  barriers  are  broken  down  and  also  fruit- 
ful topics  of  conversation  take  the  place  of  trivialities  that  often 
mark  the  social  intercourse  of  students.  This  is  well  shown 
in  institutions  for  girls  as  well  as  for  boys.  Even  the  ques- 
tionnaires which  have  been  answered  on  this  subject  by  many 
students  for  various  inquiries  have  been  helpful,  clearing  the 
moral  air  and  attracting  serious  thought  on  questionable  habits 
and  defining  ideals  of  conduct. 

From  this  brief  survey  a  few  things  are  plain.  First,  no 
such    scheme    has   to-day    any    perceptible    influence    against 


320  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

licentiousness,  although  chastity  was  the  chief  thing  that  true 
honor  was  meant  by  nature  to  safeguard.  These  codes  rarely 
make  any  attempt  to  touch  it  save  indirectly,  and  if  they  do 
so  by  direct  means  they  fail.  No  student  will  betray  lapses 
of  his  mates  in  this  field.  This  even  physicians  and  the  con- 
fessionals conceal  as  if  it  were  a  sacred  secret,  and  no  spotter, 
tell-tale,  or  detective  here  would  long  survive  the  general 
opprobrium  that  all,  even  most  of  the  purest,  would  mete  out 
to  him.  The  very  nature  of  this  vice  is  secrecy.  The  social 
penalties  visited  upon  exposure  are  so  severe  that  betrayal  is 
rare,  and  few  would  be  false  in  this  respect  even  to  their  worst 
enemies.  The  same  is  true,  though  to  a  less  extent,  of  drunk- 
enness, and  perhaps  somewhat  less  yet  of  gambling  and 
plagiarism.  Thus  the  worst  evils  to  which  sedentary  student 
life  is  exposed  are  and  always  have  been  little  afifected  by  all 
the  devices  that  make  students  responsible  for  their  own  and 
each  other's  conduct. 

Secondly,  the  best  results  are  obtained  against  cribbing  and 
cheating  in  examinations.  Here  student  sentiment  may  be, 
and  very  often  has  been,  so  strongly  enlisted  that  youth  will 
expose  their  own  companions,  and  public  sentiment  has  often 
enforced  expulsion  with  disgrace  for  this  cause  alone.  This 
is  partly  because  the  honest  suffer  by  relatively  lowered  stand- 
ing in  all  competition  tests  where  fraud  occurs.  Stealing  rank 
in  scholarship  thus  is  easily  rendered  unpopular  and  reduced 
to  a  minimum  by  rightly  directing  and  placing  responsibility 
upon  the  student  body.  This  is  really  the  chief  triumph  of 
the  system,  broadly  considered.  Now,  while  I  am  very  far 
from  condoning  this  form  of  dishonesty,  two  remarks  are 
pertinent.  First,  the  best  examinations  are  those  that  render 
all  dishonorable  modes  of  helping  self  or  others  impossible. 
Where  mere  memory  is  tested  this  kind  of  fraud  is  easiest.  I 
have  long  held  that  at  least  in  my  own  subjects  I  can  give  the 
most  effective  test  without  preventing  the  student  from  free 
access  to  all  other  helps  that  his  own  most  ingenious  devices 
and  assistance  of  others  can  render.  This,  at  any  rate,  is  the 
ideal  goal  of  all  examinations  that  test  power,  rather  than  the 
mere  acquisition  of  knowledge,  which  all  admit  is  the  desidera- 
tum. The  second  remark  is  that  life,  e.  g.,  in  the  practice  of 
every  learned  profession  and  of  teaching,  admits  all  the  helps 


MORAL   EDUCATION  321 

of  the  kind  tabooed  as  fraudulent  in  examinations.  The  cler- 
gyman, lawyer,  doctor,  engineer,  professor,  prepare  with  all 
available  notes  and  special  resources  for  the  exercises  of  their 
own  peculiar  functions,  success  in  which  is  the  test  the  world 
imposes.  For  these  reasons,  examination  honesty  is  always 
felt  deeply  in  the  unconscious  soul  of  the  student  to  be  more 
or  less  a  school-made  artifact.  Thus,  while  I  grant  that  a 
genuine  sense  of  honor  may  be  cultivated  toward  such  exer- 
cises, it  is  not  the  purest  type  in  the  best  field  of  this  noble 
sentiment.  It  is  not  wholly  intrinsic,  but  when  psychologically 
analyzed  is  found  to  rest  partly  upon  loyalty  to  classmates, 
toward  whom  they  must  play  fair,  and  partly  toward  the 
teachers  and  the  institution.  In  and  for  itself  alone,  all  aid 
in  examinations  will  never  be  felt  to  be  utterly  disgraceful, 
but  to  contain  more  or  less  of  a  conventional  element.  Again, 
many  if  not  most  students  who  ever  cheated  feel  in  their  souls 
that  a  test  does  not  measure  their  real  ability,  and  possibly  not 
even  their  real  diligence  or  training;  at  any  rate,  it  does  not 
gauge  the  real  standing  they  will  take  in  the  world.  I  know 
the  delicacy  of  this  subject  and  do  not  underestimate  the  value 
and  necessity  of  honest  examinations  nor  the  great  value  of 
what  has  been  done  here  to  develop  honor,  but  I  emphasize 
the  fact  that  all  that  has  been  accomplished  here  is  only  the 
beginning  of  what  is  needed  to  purify  student  life  and  to  give 
self-control  to  the  best  elements  of  the  soul. 

A  third  result  of  this  survey  of  student  self-regiilation  is 
that  the  best  effects  in  academic  grades  are  seen  where  self- 
control  has  been  a  slow  and  spontaneous  growth.  The  im- 
pulse to  evolve  this  function  comes  from  a  certain  ripeness  to 
exercise  it,  indeed,  sometimes  comes  as  a  reaction  from  expe- 
riences of  the  period  of  laxity  and  lawlessness.  As  students 
grow  mature  enough  to  govern  themselves,  they  grow  averse  to 
the  authority  of  adults,  however  subtle  its  forms.  In  nothing 
does  the  unwritten  tradition,  custom,  spirit,  moral  tone  of  one 
college  differ  quite  so  much  from  that  of  another.  These  are 
as  diverse,  indeed,  as  the  professional  rules  of  medicine,  which 
has  its  own  ethical  code,  of  labor  organizations  which  have 
another,  of  lawyers,  journalists  and  teachers,  which  are  more 
unformulated,  and  of  the  army  and  military  schools,  which  are 
most  highly  evolved  of  all   (witness  the  stories  of  Nathan 


322  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

Hale,  Samuel  Davis,  Major  Wirz,  the  Dreyfus  case  and  many 
a  noble  tale  from  regulars  down,  and  of  those  who  have  pre- 
ferred death  to  treason).  In  all  Teutonic  lands  to-day  the 
soldier  must  sometimes  choose  between  violating  the  civil 
code,  which  forbids  dueling,  or  perpetual  disgrace  and  social 
outlawry.  All  these  codes  are  a  product  of  slow  and  spon- 
taneous growth.  With  students,  close  watching  challenges  to 
deception,  so  that  its  very  appearance  is  carefully  avoided, 
e.  g.,  at  the  University  of  Virginia,  whereas  conversely,  as 
Woodrow  Wilson  says :  "  The  truthfulness  of  men  trusted 
grows  with  the  trust."  In  some  institutions,  especially  in  the 
South,  where  the  sentiment  of  honor  is  a  more  potent  force 
than  in  Northern  institutions,  no  matter  how  strong  the  evi- 
dence against  the  accused  student,  if  it  is  circumstantial,  he  is 
asked  to  answer  with  a  simple  yes  or  no,  and  this  answer  is 
accepted  as  prima  facie  final  and  stands,  unless  certainty  later 
shows  it  to  be  a  lie.  With  too  strict  supervision,  lying  to  the 
faculty  may  become  a  licensed  form  of  flouting  and  ridiculing 
their  authority.  Brown  University  leaves  even  athletics  to 
student  control  and  its  spirit  ought  to  reenforce  self-govern- 
ment and  honor  as  does  the  military  spirit.  Unfortunately, 
here  the  tone  that  enforces  clean  sport  has  not  yet  been  estab- 
lished, so  that  intercollegiate  garnes  can  be  very  rarely  in- 
trusted with  safety  entirely  to  students.  Experience  in  this 
field,  therefore,  to-day  warrants  impeachment  of  student  ca- 
pacity to  govern  themselves  according  to  the  highest  ethical 
standards.  If  they  cannot  control  their  own  games  aright  the 
question  is  inevitable  and  challenging  whether  they  can  be 
trusted  in  other  matters. 

Fourth,  the  evidence  from  student  clubs  of  all  kinds  and 
from  secret  fraternities  is  not  entirely  reassuring.  True, 
boarding,  debating,  literary,  dramatic  and  many  other  organ- 
izations have  been  created  and  well  managed  by  students  with 
no  supervision,  but  in  the  conduct  of  these  there  has  often 
been  extravagance,  and  many  of  them  have  failed.  In  the 
strongest  of  them  the  cohesion  and  loyalty  of  the  brethren  to 
each  other  proves  often  far  stronger  than  fidelity  to  the  inter- 
ests of  the  institution  if  conflict  arises.  Few  would  implicate 
a  fellow  member  in  any  offense  against  the  college.  "  Blood 
is  thicker  than  water,"  said  one  culprit.     "  I  had  to  lie  or  give 


MORAL   EDUCATION  323 

over  a  bosom  friend  to  the  public  disgrace  of  expulsion.  I 
would  have  hardly  done  it  for  any  other  fellow,"  Thus 
fraternity,  e.  g.,  in  a  secret  society,  shields  evil  doers.  Even 
the  matriculation  pledge  not  to  cheat  which  many  colleges 
compel  all  students  to  sign  on  entering,  is  made  void  and  the 
excuse  that  a  coerced  oath,  perhaps  from  a  non-juring  con- 
science, is  not  binding  is  natural  and  easy,  and  upper  classmen 
who  always  predominate  on  the  honor  committee  and  who 
would  act  justly  toward  a  lower  classman  have  sometimes 
failed  when  a  chum  is  concerned,  just  as  the  bonds  of  friend- 
ship in  later  life  often  prove  too  strong  for  the  laws  of  church 
or  state. 

It  is  often  said  that  while  under  a  government  that  limits 
freedom  in  so  many  points  to  the  adult  as  does  the  German 
state,  academic  youth  have  some  excuse  in  abusing  their  liberty 
during  the  academic  years,  here  in  a  democracy  there  can  be 
no  such  pretext  and  liberty  should  be  no  greater  than  it  will 
be  found  to  be  in  subsequent  life.  This  view,  however,  is 
partial,  if  not  specious.  Collegians  here  are  not  only  suddenly 
freed  from  home  and  high-school  restraints,  but  enjoy  a 
leisure  that  will  come  to  very  few  of  them  indeed  again,  for 
industry  and  business  involve  constraints  often  hardly  less 
than  servitude,  so  that  the  academic  quadrennium  is  the  heyday 
of  personal  liberty.  Here,  as  well  as  in  other  lands,  where 
the  moral  experience  that  comes  from  doing  as  one  pleases  is 
g^in  because  repression  even  from  self-control  is  escape,  one 
who  has  not  let  himself  go  within  certain  rather  generous  yet 
exceptional  limits  when  the  spontaneous  abilities  are  at  their 
very  best,  lacks  self-knowledge,  for  he  has  never  seen  him- 
self completely  deployed  in  action  and  does  not  learn  the 
true  inner  motivation  of  self-rule.  There  is  a  wholesome 
abandon  in  letting  oneself  out  a  trifle,  not  only  to  unlimber 
powers  that  might  otherwise  slumber  through  life,  but  to 
learn  from  personal  acquaintance  something  of  "  the  immortal 
powers." 

Pedagogy  of  Juvenile  Crime. — Children  obey  their  im- 
pulses and  most  of  their  misdemeanors  are  more  mischievous 
than  vicious,  and  hence  they  are  very  prone  at  a  certain  stage 
to  commit  acts  which  the  law  condemns,  without  the  slightest 
criminal    intent.     Police    systems    usually    show    leniency   by 


324  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ignoring  most  acts  and  selecting"  extreme  ones  for  warning 
treatment.  The  playground  with  its  outlet  for  physical  and 
psychic  energy  has  distinctly  mitigated  juvenile  crime.  Mod- 
erate poverty  is  usually  a  good  school  for  industry,  foresight, 
and  self-control.  For  the  Juvenile  Court  to  take  a  child  from 
its  family  has  been  compared  to  dynamiting  a  building  to 
check  a  spreading  fire;  and  yet  environment  is  vastly  more 
important  in  many  cases  than  heredity,  for  almost  always 
when  a  child  is  settled  in  a  good  home  by  the  age  of  ten,  he 
lives  out  his  life  on  or  near  its  level,  whatever  his  previous 
ancestry.  Moreover,  abnormal  conditions  in  the  environment 
are  often  easily  discoverable  and  removable  in  each  case;  and 
luminous,  too,  are  the  now  voluminous  tabulated  reports  upon 
the  effects  of  nationality,  conjugal  relation,  occupation,  hard 
times,  drinking,  poverty,  disease,  orphanage,  bad  hygiene,  etc. 
Rarely  ever  is  any  one  of  these  influences  dissociated  from 
several,  and  perhaps  all  of  them  contribute.^ 

The  Boston  law  of  1906  was  partly  due  to  the  fact  that, 
in  the  language  of  the  Police  Commissioner,  "  the  tide  of 
juvenile  delinquency  is  rising  in  Boston,  and  almost  daily  there 
is  a  new  high-water  mark."  This  law  raised  from  twelve  to 
fourteen  the  age  under  which  children  can  be  committed  to 
the  police  station,  prison,  or  State  Farm,  in  default  of  bail,  for 
non-payment  of  a  fine,  or  any  offense  not  punishable  by  death 
or  life  imprisonment.  Children  must  not  be  called  or  treated 
as  criminals  under  seventeen.  Thus  juvenile  delinquency  and 
waywardness  are  conditions,  not  offenses.  Children  cannot 
be  convicted.  Good  conduct  is  assured  not  by  penalties  in- 
flicted, but  by  the  certainty  that  they  will  follow  offenses  after 
assignment  to  the  probation  officer.  Under  this  law  parents 
may  be  held  responsible  for  not  having  withdrawn  their  chil- 
dren from  criminal  associates  or  for  permitting  truancy. 
Where  trials  occur,  the  case  is  gone  into  at  great  length,  last- 
ing perhaps  hours  instead  of  being  disposed  of  in  a  few  min- 
utes.    Reparation  plays  a  large  role;  and  sincere  regret  and 

'  M.  C.  Rhoades:  A  Case  Study  of  Delinquent  Boys  in  the  Juvenile  Court 
of  Chicago.  Amer.  Jour,  of  Soc,  July,  1907,  vol.  13,  pp.  56-78.  See  also 
Administration  and  Educational  Work  of  American  Juvenile  Reform  Schools, 
by  David  S.  Snedden.  Published  by  Teachers'  College,  Columbia  University, 
N.  Y.,  1907,  206  p. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  325 

even  apology  and  restoration  of  property  after  petty  larceny 
are  considered. 

After  a  struggle  of  centuries,  the  child  is  now  a  legal  per- 
son with  a  status  and  with  rights  that  can  be  enforced  by  law 
if  necessary,  against  even  its  own  parents.  Not  only  do 
children  no  longer  belong  to  their  parents,  in  the  sense  of  the 
old  Roman  patria  potestas,  which  gave  to  the  father  even  the 
power  of  life  and  death;  but  the  modem  court  can  compel  the 
parents  to  exercise  all  the  elementary  functions  of  providing 
shelter,  clothing,  food,  and  schooling,  can  prevent  them  from 
forcing  their  children  into  gainful  pursuits  that  involve 
jeopardy  to  health  or  morals.  Officers  of  the  State  assume 
coguardianship,  and  offspring  can  even  be  removed  from 
home  at  any  age.  The  children  belong  to  the  State  quite  as 
much,  if  not  more,  than  they  belong  to  the  parents.  Giving 
birth  and  suck  do  not  of  themselves  involve  ownership,  or  give 
the  right  to  impair  any  of  the  fundamental  conditions  of  well- 
being.  Thus  the  State  assumes  larger  duties  than  ever  before 
toward  the  child.  It  must  see  a  candidate  for  good  citizenship 
in  every  vagrant  street  Arab,  incipient  criminal,  or  invalid. 
For  this  large  function,  we  are  only  in  the  reconnoitering 
stage,  and  are  not  yet  quite  prepared  to  formulate  a  detailed 
plan  or  a  practical  campaign.  This  must  be  prepared  with  a 
view  not  only  to  the  welfare  and  maturity  of  those  already 
bom,  but  with  regard  to  future  generations. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  Juvenile  Court  has  not  in- 
creased but  rather  declined  in  favor  in  this  country  within  very 
recent  years.  The  laws  under  which  it  was  established  differ 
widely  in  different  States.  In  some  it  is  constituted  as  a 
regular  criminal  court  under  Common  Law.  The  indictment 
is  drawn  as  the  State  vs.  Johnnie  or  Mollie;  there  is  a  jury, 
trial  with  counsel,  bailing  out,  habeas  corpus,  sentence,  appeals, 
etc.  It  is  impossible,  however,  to  do  the  best  for  boys  under 
such  a  system;  and  hence  it  comes  that  so  many  decisions  of 
the  juvenile  are  reversed  by  higher  courts,  so  that  the  profes- 
sional standing  of  the  judges  in  the  former  is  jeopardized,  and 
perhaps  permanently  impaired — all  through  no  fault  of  their 
own,  but  because  of  the  anomalous  position  of  a  court  based 
partly  on  Equity  and  partly  on  Common  Law.  As  against 
this,  in  all  such  courts  the  equity  principle  should  be  made 


326  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

supreme,  as  it  is  beginning  to  be  in  a  few  State  laws.  This 
means  that  the  judge  can  exercise  his  sound  common  sense  in 
each  case.  He  can  not  only  exclude  other  boys,  the  public  and 
the  press  from  the  trial  so  that  those  brought  before  him  may 
be  shielded  from  both  publicity  and  notoriety  as  is  usually 
done,  but  has  almost  unlimited  discretion  to  vary  his  treatment 
to  fit  individual  needs.  The  issue  is  between  mechanical  uni- 
formity on  the  one  hand  with  incessant  reference  to  precedence, 
and  indefinite  power  to  adjust  to  personalities  on  the  other. 
It  is  the  boy  versus  the  system.  The  success  of  every  such 
court,  not  only  does,  but  always  must  depend  very  largely  upon 
the  personality  of  the  judge  himself,  although  it  is  hard  for 
the  legal  mind  to  escape  dominance  of  the  ideal  of  a  system, 
which  any  person  can  administer.  It  is  plain,  therefore,  that 
we  are  far  from  having  solved  the  problem  of  how"  to  treat 
young  delinquents.  If  we  look  solely  at  the  offender  some 
scheme  of  parole,  probation,  or  guardianship  is  clearly  best. 
•  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  a  boy  slightly  tainted  is,  under  the 
system,  allowed  to  be  at  large,  he  often  infects  other  boys  with 
whatever  degree  of  viciousness  he  has  developed.  Hence  we 
have  two  ideals  in  this  country — one  that  regards  the  boy  and 
aims  chiefly  at  his  salvation,  as  represented  by  Judge  Lindsey ; 
and  the  other  that  looks  first  at  the  good  of  the  greater  number 
of  boys  who  are  in  danger  of  moral  infection  unless  those  in 
whom  the  evil  is  smoldering  be  isolated  from  them,  and 
whose  interests  may  in  some  cases  be  best  safeguarded  if  he 
is  shut  up.  Again,  age  limits  of  responsibility,  as  established 
by  law,  are  very  wooden  and  noxious.  A  girl  of  fifteen,  e.  g., 
may  be  so  wholly  depraved  as  to  demoralize  a  wide  circle  of 
boys  and  girls,  being  herself,  it  may  be,  steeped  in  vice  and 
really  old  in  its  practice;  but,  if  the  age  of  consent  where  she 
lives  is  sixteen,  a  young  man  whom  she  misleads  for  the  first 
time,  although  he  be  relatively  innocent,  may  suffer  the  severe 
penalty  of  being  her  corrupter  and  she  go  scott  free,  when  if  a 
year  older  she  would  bear  all  the  penalty.  The  equity  judge 
should  look  solely  at  the  merits  of  the  individual  case  and  not 
be  influenced  by  the  superficial,  arbitrary  categorizations  of 
classes  of  crimes  and  punishment,  and  should  be  emancipated 
from  the  letter  of  the  law  which  may  so  easily  work  great 
injustice. 


MORAL    EDUCATION  327 

The  best  juvenile  court  would  be  one  that  could  be  held 
anywhere,  at  any  time,  where  the  judge  was,  and  as  occasion 
arose.  It  should  be  a  court,  we  may  add,  that  if  it  were  ideal 
and  had  accomplished  its  end,  would  never  be  held  anywhere. 
But  its  agencies  would  be  devoted  to  preventive  work,  which 
would  be  so  effective  as  to  eliminate  occasion  for  trials.  My 
ideal  would  be  something  like  this :  Let  the  judge  and  his 
helpers,  including  probation  and  truant  officers,  when  ap- 
pointed in  a  community,  first  visit  the  schools,  churches,  boys' 
and  girls'  clubs,  and  tell  the  children  concisely  the  substance 
of  each  city  ordinance  and  law  which  pertained  to  them  and 
which  they  might  break  unwittingly.  Let  them  tell  the  rea- 
sons for  everything  the  law  prescribes  and  the  end  it  was 
intended  to  accomplish,  and  point  out  ways  in  which  it  might 
be  accidentally  violated,  and  add  the  details  of  the  methods  of 
procedure :  arrest,  trial,  disposition  of  the  various  classes  of 
cases — all  this  could  be  done  in  a  way  to  enlist  the  understand- 
ing and  even  the  sympathy  of  every  normal  boy  in  the  upper 
grammar  grades  in  a  way  that  would  affect  his  attitude  toward 
law  throughout  his  subsequent  life.  This  kind  of  moral  teach- 
ing by  extreme  examples  of  dereliction  is  just  what  not  only 
interests  the  boys'  liking  for  adventure,  but  vents  it  on  the 
principle  of  the  Aristotelian  catharsis,  so  that  they  are  more 
immune  from  temptation  and  also  better  informed.  This 
might  be  done  two  or  three  times  a  year,  briefly  and  concisely, 
as  a  concrete  lesson  in  morals  and  in  civic  duty.  If  these  incul- 
cations were  enriched  with  examples  and  made  a  kind  of  clinic 
for  juveniles,  there  is  not  the  slightest  danger,  as  old  women 
of  both  sexes  are  prone  to  imagine,  of  infection  unless  the 
teacher  is  ignorant  of  the  first  principles  of  pedagogy  and  of 
insight  and  tact  in  dealing  with  children.  Properly  told,  about 
every  kind  of  wrongdoing  may  be  described  in  a  way  to  deeply 
impress  and  to  deter.  In  the  next  place,  each  teacher  or  prin- 
cipal should  keep  a  notebook  with  a  ledger  page  for  each 
child,  entering  its  good  and  bad  traits  and  acts.  When  it 
appeared  from  the  record  and  observations  that  a  boy  or  girl 
was  drifting  into  moral  danger,  whether  by  the  development 
of  an  ijinatc  tendency  or  by  outer  circumstances  and  associa- 
tions, or  home  conditions,  and  if  the  teacher  or  principal  are 
not  satisfied  with  what  they  are  able  to  do  in  the  case,  then  the 


328  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

juvenile  judge  or  his  officers  should  be  invoked  and  each 
critical  case  turned  over  to  him  for  such  moral  treatment  as 
he  deemed  best  after  investigation.  The  fact  that  the  boy 
knew,  although  no  others  did,  that  he  was  under  guardianship 
and  could  be  taken  into  custody,  would  make  preventive 
measures  effective ;  and  the  overt  criminal  act  to  which  the  boy 
was  tending  might  be  avoided.  Thus  in  every  school  there 
might  be  a  few  clinical  cases  under  the  joint  observation  of 
teacher  and  moral  officer.  And  the  same  help  might  be 
rendered  by  the  latter  to  children  from  homes  and  even  Sun- 
day schools,  etc.  In  this  w^ay  outside  the  school,  home,  and 
church,  there  would  be  constituted  an  agency  to  deal  with 
exceptional  children  and  youth  before  the  age  of  full  legal 
liability  whom  teachers  and  parents  failed  adequately  to  reach, 
and  who  might  otherwise  drift  on  toward  criminality.  Nor- 
mal moral  children  would  know  thus  something  about  juvenile 
delinquency — how  it  was  treated  and  regarded  and  why,  its 
place  in  the  civic  organization  under  which  they  lived,  as  an 
intellectual  matter;  while  those  with  wayward  proclivities 
would  know  restraining  agencies  more  intimately,  having 
passed  through  one  or  more  of  the  grades  of  correction : 
friendly  advice,  aid,  warning,  reproof,  supervision,  probation 
with  duty  to  report  at  stated  intervals,  and  hence  feel  the 
progressive  surveillance  and  restriction  of  liberty  which  might 
lead  on  to  residence  in  reformatory  institutions  of  various 
grades  according  to  the  degree  of  defect,  and  the  need  of  the 
apparatus  of  moral  orthopedics. 

Why  is  not  some  such  institution  as  needed  and  as  practical 
as  a  department  of  hygiene,  which  abates  nuisances,  disinfects 
dumps,  and  removes  dangerous  patients?  Its  officers  could 
develop  many  accessory  functions,  such  as  modes  of  tabulating 
all  kinds  of  information,  that  experience  might  be  utilized  to 
the  uttermost;  more  frequent  consultations  concerning  very 
problematical  children  in  the  grades,  as  physicians  consult  in 
critical  cases ;  modes  of  investigating  the  moral  surroundings ; 
methods  of  keeping  tab,  without  overt  espionage,  upon  boys 
and  girls  whose  temptations  to  go  wrong  were  increasing;  ad- 
monishing negligent  parents;  finding  volunteer  guardians 
whose  aid  could  be  invoked  for  special  children.  They  could 
also  develop  to  a  considerable  extent  such  moral  lessons  as 


MORAL   EDUCATION  329 

might  be  given  to  schools  based  upon  the  legal  requirements 
and  the  infraction  of  laws.  It  would,  of  course,  be  essential 
that  in  this  group  of  officials  should  be  vested  the  power  to 
penalize  rather  severely;  and  that  they  should,  upon  extreme 
occasions,  exercise  this  power  relentlessly  and  without  appeal. 
There  is  in  nearly  every  boy  community  a  small  group  of 
toughs  who  presume  ostentatiously,  if  not  defiantly,  upon  the 
tenderness  of  their  elders  and  also  upon  the  mildness  of 
penalties,  very  clearly  understanding  that  they  can  sin  with 
relative  impunity  up  to  a  certain  age,  at  the  moment  of  attain- 
ing which  this  is  replaced  by  severe  penalties.  These  age 
nodes  should  all  be  graded  away,  so  that  punition  should  grow 
steadily  and  pari  passu  with  inner  responsibility.  The  penal 
code  should  be  the  magna  charta  of  offenders,  and  its  admin- 
istration should  be  so  just  that  the  boy  who  is  punished  should 
never  feel  that  others  more  guilty  than  he  escaped;  for  this 
implants  a  deep  sense  of  enmity  against  the  law  generally,  if 
not  against  society  itself.  The  sense  of  justice,  innate  in  every 
boy,  is  the  very  best  foundation  upon  which  to  build  the  whole 
fabric  of  moral  education.  Its  possibilities  are  now  wastefully 
neglected  because  unknown,  because  they  have  been  so  over- 
balanced by  excessive  kindness,  mercy,  and  indulgence.  It  is 
easy  and  lazy  morality  to  forgive  everything;  but  to  act  justly 
requires  a  far  higher  quality  of  both  mind  and  will./ 

Judge  Willis  Brown,  next  to  Judge  Lindsey,  one  of  the 
most  suggestive  workers  in  this  field,  makes  the  helpful  sug- 
gestion that  in  one  or  more  schools  in  a  city,  moral  instruction 
of  a  special  and  intensive  kind  be  provided,  and  that  children 
from  all  other  schools  who  are  in  moral  jeopardy  or  have 
truant  or  other  dangerous  proclivities  be  sent  there.  He 
would  also  have  the  boys  in  each  school  district  organized  as  a 
city  ward  :  hold  stated  meetings,  elect  officers,  discuss  such 
local  civic  and  moral  questions  as  they  or  their  advisers  deem 
well.  This  plan  would  bring  certain  of  the  best  features  of  the 
George  Junior  Republic,  Boy  City,  and  Boys'  Clubs  into  the 
schools.  There  could  be  a  system  of  cities  within  a  city,  if 
each  school  were  organized  into  a  municipality,  where  ques- 
tions of  interest  to  both  ward  and  city  were  discussed  and 
acted  on  in  a  moot  way  as  they  arose.  Moral  betterment 
should  be  the  goal. 


330  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

Now,  in  connection  with  this  system,  if  each  boy  who 
should  profit  thereby  were  placed  under  some  worthy  man  who 
lived  near  by  and  who  could  occasionally  meet  him,  based  on 
friendship  and  mutual  help,  in  ways  each  pair  could  work  out, 
there  might  be  great  gain.  In  many  of  the  best  lands  and 
periods  of  history  boys  have  had,  besides  their  parents,  some 
mentor,  godfather,  guardian,  or  advisor  with  avuncular  or 
uncle  functions;  and  good  has  thereby  come  to  both  parties. 
Upon  unmarried  young  men  especially,  some  such  responsibil- 
ity toward  one  or  more  boys  might  be  made  a  part  of  civic 
and  social  duty,  as  in  the  best  days  of  Greece,  where  this  sys- 
tem was  so  developed  that  it  was  a  disgrace  to  a  boy  not  to 
have  some  older  male  friend,  protector  or  counselor.  That 
later  in  a  degenerate  age  this  relation  often  became  corrupt 
should  not  intimidate  us  from  learning  again  to  utilize  all  the 
good  that  might  be  attained  by  such  quasi-paternal  relations 
as  all  mature  men,  whether  fathers  or  not,  ought  for  their  own 
psychic  development  to  exercise  toward  boys.  Even  the  fag 
as  well  as  the  tutorial  system  was  only  another  expression  of 
this  form  of  mutualism  between  older  and  younger  men. 
Beginning  with  boys  needing  exceptional  care,  the  scheme 
might  be  extended  indefinitely  to  others.  Whereas  the  juve- 
nile judge  with  a  genius  for  his  work,  like  Lindsey,  might 
thus  befriend  many  boys  in  need,  there  are  very  many  young 
men  in  every  community  who  might  assume  more  or  less  the 
care  of  one  boy,  and  be  themselves  matured  and  morally 
strengthened  by  it.  Aspects  of  this  mentorship  seem  slowly 
developing  in  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  the  Epworth  League,  the  Big 
Brothers'  movement,  and  some  other  religious  organizations. 
Plato  deemed  it  one  of  the  strongest  of  all  incentives  to  virtue 
in  these  guardians  that  they  felt  that  they  must  ahvays  set 
good  examples  to  their  charges  and  never  let  the  latter  detect 
faults  in  their  character  or  conduct.  As  a  foreschool  for 
fatherly  interests  thus  it  would  be  beneficent.  While  for  boys 
in  the  early  teens,  and  even  before,  from  the  time  when  lads 
cease  to  be  interested  solely  in  mates  of  their  ow^n  age  and  be- 
gin to  long  and  tiptoe  up  toward  adult  companionship,  and  love 
above  all  things  to  be  talked  to  as  if  they  w^ere  themselves 
grown  up,  when  they  begin  to  recognize  the  existence  of  great 
questions  above  them,  or  grapple  with  the  problem  of  how'  to 


MORAL   EDUCATION  331 

earn  a  livelihood,  and  what  vocation  to  choose,  it  would  seem 
almost  as  if  they  had  a  sacred  and  inalienable  right  in  our 
modern  communities  to  be  placed  in  frank,  confidential  rela- 
tions with  some  man  in  addition  to  their  father.  Here  we 
might  realize  again  the  almost  lost  ideals  of  antiquity,  as  ex- 
pressed by  Aristotle  and  Cicero,  which  romantic  love  has 
thrown  into  the  background. 

What  immeasurable  good,  too,  might  come  of  such  rela- 
tionships between  mature  women  and  girls  during  the  most 
critical  period  of  their  development,  who  are  sorely  in  need  of 
counsel  which  they  hesitate  to  seek  from  their  mothers? 
Social  workers  are  beginning  to  realize  this  and  might  develop 
still  further  a  system  of  auxiliary  helpers,  mothers'  assistants 
or  coadjutors,  and  enlist  an  efficient  corps  of  first  aiders  for 
those  in  moral  danger,  who  would  grow  themselves  for  their 
care  into  more  wholesome,  richer,  and  all-rounded  woman- 
hood, and  be  more  insightful  mothers  later.  Surely  every 
girl,  especially  in  the  city,  as  she  begins  to  bloom  into  woman- 
hood ought  to  have  a  foster  parent  or  shepherd  of  her  soul. 

Strange  to  say,  there  is  no  provision  made  at  any  university  in 
the  world  for  training  juvenile  judges,  probation  or  truant  officers. 
A  lawyer  or  judge,  already  familiar  with  adult  and  Common  Law 
cases,  is  usually  by  this  experience  peculiarly  unfitted  to  deal  with 
children.  Vested  with  great  discretionary  powers,  even  to  take  the 
young  from  their  parents  from  early  infancy  on,  and  place  them 
wherever  he  deems  best ;  able  to  fine  and  even  imprison  parents  for 
neglect,  cruelty,  overwork,  etc.,  he  is  a  rare  man  who  can  at  the  same 
time  win,  as  he  needs  to,  the  confidence  of  both  parents  and  chil- 
dren, so  that  the  former  will  consult  him  as  to  the  home  discipline 
or  the  disposition  of  their  own  problematic  boys  and  girls,  and  the 
latter  will  confess  everything  to  him  as  a  friend,  upon  his  assurance 
that  he  will  not  use  it  against  them  or  their  pals  but  will  forget  it  in 
his  judicial  capacity.  Yet  this  ideal  seems  to  be  almost  attained  by 
a  very  few.  The  keynote  here  influencing  boys  tending  to  criminal- 
ity is  justice.  They  respond  to  the  very  words  "  lair  play,"  "  on 
the  square,"  "  on  the  level,"  "  an  honest  game,"  etc.  A  man  with  his 
mind  charged  with  incidents  of  boys  in  moral  peril,  who  have  gone 
wrong,  or  been  barely  kept  straight,  who  brings  news  from  the  fight- 
ing line  where  so  many  go  down  to  moral  death,  who  has  genuine 
sympathy  with  boys,  can  influence  them  as  pedagogy  cannot  begin 
to  do.  With  these  two  equipments — sympathy  and  a  wide  concrete 
knowledge — such  a  man  incidentally  becomes  the  captain  of  lx)ys, 
their  gang  loader,  their  hero  or  example,  somewhat  as  the  dog  under 


332  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEMS 

domestication  left  the  wild  pack  and  transferred  his  devotion  from 
it  to  his  human  master. 


Next,  I  would  have  the  school,  the  church,  and  all  the 
houses  of  detention  utilize  to  the  uttermost  these  born  pedo- 
triebs  as  inspirers  of  virtue  as  well  as  deterrers  from  evil.  Yet, 
while  it  is  an  inspiration  to  adults  even  to  see  these  boy  soul- 
compellers  lead  their  flock  about  as  the  Pied  Piper  did  the 
children  and  the  very  rats,  they  are  prone,  I  think,  even  the 
best  of  them,  to  fall  into  diverse  affectations ;  and  because  of 
their  very  power  they  often  try  to  attempt  if  not  the  impossible 
at  least  the  unnatural,  so  that  when  their  influence  is  with- 
drawn, a  dangerous  reaction  may  set  in.  Some  of  these  adult 
boy  leaders,  e.  g.,  are  overpietistic  and  seek  to  inoculate  other- 
w'orldness  at  an  age  when  a  boy  wants  and  needs  to  be  most 
absorbed  in  this  world.  The  Jesus  as  the  church  represents 
Him  is  not  a  natural  object  of  devotion  to  the  natural  boy  of 
twelve,  and  another  life  seems  very  unreal  compared  with  this. 
Hence  clever  ways  of  smuggling  in  transcendental  persons 
and  influences,  that  w'e  often  see,  are  not  the  soundest  peda- 
gogy. To  say,  e.  g.,  "  You  are  not  giving  Jesus  a  square  deal 
if  you  cheat,  lie,  steal,  etc.,  because  He  came  down  and  suffered 
and  died  for  us  " — may  be  led  up  to  in  a  way  to  produce  con- 
siderable immediate  effect  upon  a  susceptible  youth ;  but  there 
is  something  essentially  foreign  to  boy  nature  in  all  this,  and 
so  it  wears  away,  and  the  only  permanent  effect  that  results 
therefrom  is  often  that  the  soul  is  rendered  a  little  callous 
and  immune  to  the  infection  of  real  religion  when  its  time 
comes.  So,  too,  such  a  mentor's  collection  of  illustrative  cases 
of  virtue  and  vice  may  both  be  so  extreme  and  exceptional  and 
so  far  outside  the  boy's  experience  that,  while  their  recital 
impresses  at  the  time,  he  does  not  meet  their  like  in  his  daily 
life  and  so  their  moral  fails ;  or  at  best  it  all  remains  foreign 
and  is  not  knit  up  into  the  texture  of  his  most  frequent 
thoughts  and  acts.  Much  of  the  subject  matter  of  talks  to 
boys  is  of  goodness  so  very  exotic  and  of  badness  so  heinous 
that  it  remains  in  the  soul  as  something  rather  foreign,  like 
book  talk  or  preaching. 

I  would  have  moral  instruction  in  the  schools  include  at 
least  a  glimpse  at  the  many  interesting  problems  of  juvenile 


MORAL   EDUCATION  333 

delinquency  in  each  city  where  a  good  social  survey  has  been 
made  in  this  field. 

For  instance,  in  the  city  of  Worcester,  Mass.^  A.  H.  N.  Baron  ^ 
showed  that  in  the  preceding  five  years,  out  of  nearly  1,500  cases  of 
boys  and  girls  who  had  in  some  way  come  in  connection  with  the  court, 
about  one  half  were  cases  of  stubbornness;  and  that  of  these  most 
complaints  were  made  by  parents  who,  as  the  records  show,  did  not 
know  how  to  deal  with  their  children.  In  other  words,  their  parenthood 
was  incompetent  when  the  children  reached  the  teens.  Next  came 
larceny  with  breaking  and  entering,  thefts  being  mostly  of  articles 
of  food  and  next  of  dress,  though,  in  the  winter,  of  coal ;  and  where 
money,  or  material  that  could  be  disposed  of  to  raise  it  in  pawn  and 
junk  shops,  was  stolen,  it  was  in  many  cases  to  buy  cigarettes  with. 
What  the  law  calls  "  malevolent  mischief  "  is  a  very  varied  list  of 
tricks,  due  often  to  exuberant  animal  spirits  but  sometimes  danger- 
ous tampering  with  railroad  signals,  false  fire  alarms,  and  practical 
jokes.  The  "  violation  of  Lord's  day "  is  mainly  by  playing  ball 
and  cards.  Trespass  seems  mostly  to  have  been  either  playfulness  or 
to  have  a  hunkey  or  hang-out  for  a  club.  Vagrants  are  usually 
strangers  who  had  stolen  rides  on  trains.  Other  legal  rubrics  are : 
obstructing  passage,  throwing  stones  on  the  street,  disturbing  the 
peace,  assault  and  battery,  cruelty  to  animals,  walking  on  the  rail- 
road track,  peddling  without  a  license. 

All  such  classifications  are  not  by  motives.  They  do  not  consider 
the  ordinance  was  violated  by  imitation,  by  special  temptation,  by 
playfulness,  ignorance,  or  other  motives;  but  the  standards  are  ob- 
jective and  wooden. 

As  to  treatment  of  the  various  cases,  nearly  one  fourth  were 
fined.  The  fine  naturally  falls  chiefly  upon  the  parent  and  is  essen- 
tially a  bad  system.  Wherever  there  are  enough  good  probation 
officers,  and  the  probation  system  is  the  keystone  of  the  arch  in  deal- 
ing with  juveniles,  fines  are  almost  eliminated  as  are  cases  of  second 
or  third  arrests,  which  here  constitute  about  one  third  of  all.  Per- 
haps some  who  have  been  under  surveillance  are  suspected  unjustly 
afterwards  for  that  reason.  It  is  not  quite  clear  whether  such  a 
system  as  prevails  in  Buffalo  with  a  good  corps  of  expert  probation 
officers,  who  follow  up  all  who  have  been  brought  to  the  attention 
of  the  court  and  released  on  parole  or  probation,  or  with  suspended 
sentence,  is  better  than  the  system  of  one  paid  chief  probation  officer 
who  among  business  men  finds  sponsors  who  will  take  one  or  more 
cases  to  look  after.  Juvenile  cases  should  certainly  be  tried  every 
day  and  not  once  a  week  as  here,  especially  as  the  older  boys  are 
shut  up  between  the  arrest  and  trial.    All  the  years  taken  cognizance 

*  Population  130,000. 

'  In  a  Master's  Thesis,  Juvenile  Delinquency  in  Worcester,  Mass.  Clark 
University,  June,  1906,  33  p. 


334  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

of  here  are  between  seven  and  seventeen;  the  age  fourteen  halves 
the  cases,  there  being  as  many  before  as  after,  and  the  last  year 
being  the  worst.  It  would  seem  that  better  arrangements  would 
make  it  necessary  to  send  less  members  to  truant  schools  and  espe- 
cially to  the  Lyman  School,  which  shows  excellent  records  for  those 
who  have  been  there,  but  probably  in  part  because  many  were  sent 
who  should  not  have  been. 

Now  my  point  is  that  these  facts  and  the  process  of  arrest,  trial, 
etc.,  should  be  briefly  described  to  all  boys  before  leaving  the  Gram- 
mar School,  if  not  indeed  earlier,  for  several  reasons:  (a)  the  law 
does  not  accept  ignorance  as  an  excuse  and  quite  a  number  of  arrests 
occur  every  year  of  innocent  boys  whose  violation  was  unwitting. 
Moreover,  (b)  the  natural  interest  of  boys  in  those  who  go  wrong 
and  the  utilization  of  the  lessons  that  come  from  this  knowledge 
does  much  to  clear  up  the  concrete  mind  of  a  boy  in  regard,  if  not 
to  moral  questions,  to  what  the  community  permits  and  what  it  does 
not  permit.  I  see  no  reason  why  all  boys  should  not  be  interested 
and  should  not  be  told  a  little  about  the  Juvenile  Court,  the  inde- 
terminate sentence,  the  probation  system,  etc. 

Hans  Kurella  ^  gives  an  admirable  summary  of  Lombroso's  theory, 
the  kernel  of  which  is  perhaps  his  estimate  that  forty  per  cent  of  crim- 
inals are  a  special  variety  of  the  human  race,  to  whom  atavism  has 
given  unique  physical  and  psychic  processes.  This  means  that  their 
tendencies  are  innate  and  inherited,  and  that  they  have  certain  traits 
that  make  their  type  more  or  less  unitary.  Lombroso  expends  great 
ingenuity  in  showing  that  criminals  among  modern  cultivated  people 
do  represent  survivals  of  conditions  common  in  prehistoric  life;  and 
he  even  traces  the  germs  of  crime  down  to  the  very  anatomy  of  the 
primates  and  even  to  lower  animal  forms.  On  the  psychic  side,  too, 
he  finds  atavisms  characteristic  of  criminals  in  insensitiveness  to 
pain,  tendencies  to  tattoo,  to  be  left-handed,  hairiness,  slight  differ- 
ence of  sexes,  slight  vasomotor  excitability,  and  disvulnerability. 
This  theory  does  not  imply  that  all  primitive  races  would  be  crimi- 
nals. It  is  supported  by  the  moral  deficiency  of  early  childhood. 
From  this  view,  it  by  no  means  strictly  follows  that  born  criminals 
are  irresponsible.  Those  who  know  criminal  psychology  as  moral 
pathology  will  hardly  make  this  error.  He  believes  the  epileptic 
and  criminal  diathesis  similar,  and  that  both  illustrate  something  like 
moral  insanity.  Benedikt  is  perhaps  his  most  thoroughgoing  pupil 
and  holds  that  very  many  criminals  are  degenerates,  as  does  Fere. 
Laurent  and  Corre  have  also  contributed  to  this  theory,  which  Dortel 
and  Francotte  have  amplified  theoretically.  Kurella  opposes  this 
view,  although  admitting  the  great  access  of  interest  that  it  has 
brought  into  this  field. 

'  Naturgeschichte  des  Verbrechers;  Grundziige  der  criminellen  Anthropologic 
und  Criminal  psychologic  fur  Gerichtsarzte,  Psychiater,  Juristen  und  Verwaltungs- 
beamte,     Stuttgart,  Ferdinand  Enke,  1893,  284  p. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  335 

Theodor  Ziehen  '  in  answer  to  the  question,  By  what  physical  or 
psychic  symptoms  do  we  recognize  in  children  during  their  first  years 
congenital  weak-mindedness?  gives  a  number  of  norms:  for  instance, 
the  circumference  of  the  skull  at  the  end  of  the  first  month  of  life 
averages  36  centimeters ;  at  the  end  of  the  first  year  45 ;  at  the  end 
of  the  second  48;  of  the  fifth  50.  He  characterizes  the  micro- and 
macro-cephalic  types  of  the  cranial  and  other  bones.  Defects  are 
matters  of  coordination,  and  to  be  extremely  lacking  in  one  respect 
some  have  attempted  to  compare  with  less  variation  in  several  re- 
spects. The  writer  then  describes  abnormal  sensations  and  other 
physical  signs  of  degeneration,  both  functionally  and  structurally. 
As  for  tests  of  intelligence,  he  would  have  them  directed  toward  (a) 
memory,  (b)  formation  of  ideas,  and  (c)  judgment  or  power  of  com- 
bination. Merkf'dhigkeit  is  stressed.  Many  children  of  nine  or  ten 
years  cannot  count  higher  than  three  or  four.  Number  tests  are  very 
significant.  As  to  questions,  very  much  depends  upon  the  form  in 
which  they  are  put ;  those  requiring  definitions  are  far  harder  than 
those  that  require  distinctions. 

E.  Neter  ^  urges  that  most  cases  of  transgression  of  law  might  be 
dealt  with  by  less  excessive  methods.  The  right  of  the  state  to 
meddle  with  the  family  should  be  greatly  increased.  The  deeper 
cases  of  juvenile  crime  are  in  fields  inaccessible  to  criminal  juris- 
prudence and  are  too  complex  and  manifold  in  their  nature  to  be 
solved  by  its  methods.  This  fact  impels  us  to  a  more  intensive  study 
of  causes,  in  order  to  fight  the  evil  at  its  beginning.  Here,  just  as 
in  medicine,  prophylaxis  becomes  increasingly  more  important.  Care 
for  the  young  people  and  juvenile  justice  are  not  two  domains  but 
one,  and  both  are  vital  problems  of  education. 

Otto  Binswanger  ^  gives  a  history  of  the  idea  of  moral  insanity 
from  the  time  it  first  began  to  be  regarded  as  an  independent  symp- 
tom group  in  which  criminal  tendencies  were  dominant  or  irresistible. 
The  point  was  to  prove  that  such  disturbances  could  exist  without 
any  impairment  of  the  intellect.  Later  the  idea  of  moral  insanity 
or  imbecility  was  more  sharply  defined  and  it  was  required  that  some 
serious  defect  of  the  ethical  feelings  and  ideas  should  be  proven 
from  the  earliest  childhood.  The  born  criminal  may  be  the  abnormal 
phenomenon  of  the  social  organism,  perhaps  a  peculiar  anthropo- 
logical variety,  but  he  must  never  be  regarded  as  insane  so  long  as 
there  are  no  other  signs  of  mental  disease  except  moral  defect.  The 
criteria  that  enable  us  to  decide  with  certainty  between  born  crimi- 
nals and  moral  imbeciles,  both  of  whom  have  defects  in  their  develop- 
ment and  perhaps  antisocial  tendencies,  is  the  question  whether  the 
perversion  is  exclusively  in  the  moral  and  aesthetic  domain.     Only 

'  Die  ErkcnnungdesSchwarhsinnsim  Kindcsalter.     Bt-rlin,  KarRiT,  i<>oq,  3a  p. 
*  Die  Bchandlung  dcr  strafTiilligcn  Jugcnd.     Miinchen,  Gmclin,  i<)o8,  56  p. 
'  Uber  den    moralisthcn   Schwarhsinn,   mit    iK-sondtrcr   IkTiicksichtigung  dcr 
kindlichen  Altcrsstufe.     Berlin,  Rcuther,  1905,  36  p. 


336 


EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 


CURVE  SHOWING   PREVALENCE  OF  CRIME 
AT  DIFFERENT  AGES. 


when  troubles  of  development  in  the  intellectual  sphere  or  other 
signs  of  a  morbid  change  in  psychic  processes  are  found  can  we 
speak  of  moral  insanity  or  imbecility.  Often  the  abstract  ethical 
ideas  are  not  firmly  anchored  to  the  ego  and  so  are  not  a  real  pos- 
session of  the  individual  and  thus  cannot  influence  his  thought  and 
action  because  they  do  not  awaken  the  proper  feeling  tone  of  the 
self. 

Paul  Pollitz  ^  constructs  the  following  curve  of  juvenile 
crime  which   he  thinks  typical,    showing  an  apex   at   about 

sixteen,  and  then  a  decline 
as  power  of  control  and  social 
restraint  develop,  with  a  later 
rise  showing  adult  crimi- 
nality. 

Youth  our  Chief  National 
Resource  and  the  Need  of 
Conserving  It. — Among  the 
demoralizing  agencies,  never 
so  potent  in  the  world  as  now 
and  in  this  country,  is  immi- 
gration. Upon  landing  on 
our  shores,  foreign  families 
find  their  dress  queer  and 
their  language  treated  without  respect.  The  fact  of  their 
being  aliens  is  a  disadvantage  and,  to  the  young,  perhaps 
a  badge  of  contempt  and  derision.  Their  children  take  up  our 
new  ideas  and  ways  first ;  and  as  the  chief  desire  of  the  parents 
is  that  they  become  Americanized  as  rapidly  as  possible,  the 
young  lead  the  old  and  parental  authority  and  respect  for  them 
is  lost.  If  we  revered  the  strangers  in  our  country  as  foreign- 
ers respect  American  travelers  coming  from  the  better  classes, 
all  would  be  different.  As  it  is,  for  a  long  period,  during 
which  often  a  million  a  year  from  the  Old  World  have  landed 
upon  our  shores,  mostly  from  the  ignorant  and  day-laboring 
class,  the  native  Americans,  young  and  old  alike,  have  acquired 
a  deep-down  dislike  if  not  contempt  of  foreigners  as  a  class. 
This  change  and  the  larger  industrial  opportunities  here  con- 

'  Die  Psychologic  des  Verbrechers;  Kriminalpsychologie,  Leipzig,  Teubner, 
1909,  148  p.  Also  one  of  the  very  best  general  treatises  on  the  subject  is  G.  L. 
Dupiat's  La  Criminality  dans  I'Adolescence,  Paris,  Alcan,  1909,  260  p. 


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18-1815-19  ia-JUI-8B  »B-M  30-40  40-60  80-60  60-70    70 


MORAL   EDUCATION  337 

stitute  the  conditions  which  first  attracted  and  now  hold  the 
ahen  and  make  him  wish  to  transform  all  his  ways  of  life 
to  the  pattern  set  here,  so  that  his  previous  habits,  customs,  and 
the  social  traditions  that  remind  him  of  the  fatherland  are  soon 
laid  aside,  with  often  religious  and  moral  ideas  as  well,  in  order 
to  facilitate  the  rapid  adjustment  to  a  new  national  basis. 
This  is  very  hard  on  character.  Travelers  often  allow  them- 
selves great  ethical  license  in  things  that  home  restraints  for- 
bid. But  for  immigrants  all  old  ties  are  abruptly  and  usually 
permanently  sundered,  and  they  soon  become  ashamed  of 
ancient  ways.  The  effects  of  transplantation  have  some 
psychological  kinship  to  those  of  sudden  emancipation  for  the 
negroes  in  this  country  after  the  war.  Women,  and  especially 
the  old  women,  are  most  conservative,  so  that  this  transforma- 
tion is  often  most  pathetically  hard  for  grandmothers  whose 
dress,  speech,  occupation,  social  and  religious  life  are  so  fixed 
and  hard  to  change  and  thus  often,  instead  of  being  revered  by 
two  generations  in  their  own  household,  they  lose  influence 
upon  their  children  and  are  perhaps  flouted  by  their  grand- 
children, who  grow  ashamed  of  their  persistent  old-country 
ways.  In  such  cases  the  order  of  family  life  is  inverted :  the 
youngest  lead  and  the  oldest  are  in  least  esteem.  The  children 
translate,  deal  with  tradesmen,  bear  the  news,  mediate  between 
the  old  civilization  and  our  own.  The  past  seems  more  or 
less  vain,  if  not  despicable,  and  they  grow  conscious  and  then 
ashamed  of  its  every  memento.  All  this  tends  to  be  swept 
into  a  great  maelstrom  of  oblivion,  so  that  a  fresh  start  may 
be  made  with  a  tabula  rasa.  Thus  often  we  have  both  a  social 
and  individual  regeneration  or  degeneration.  Under  this  state 
of  things,  newcomers  to  our  shores  contribute  nothing  save 
their  heredity  and  working  power ;  and  the  character  and  diver- 
sity of  ethnic  tradition,  so  precious  a  factor  in  the  amalgam 
being  here  prepared  in  the  great  smelting  pot  of  races,  tends 
to  be  lost;  and  the  monotony  of  Americanism,  if  not  Ameri- 
canitis,  swallows  all  these  rich  sources  of  diversification.  As 
vestiges  of  this  sort  die  hard,  the  races  here  tend  to  huddle  in 
quarters,  streets,  settlements,  in  order  to  keep  each  other's  old- 
fashionedness  in  countenance,  and  that  reverence  for  their 
ancient  ways  may  at  least  die  decently  with  the  generation 
that  migrated. 

23 


338  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

Now  this  is  both  pathetic  and  wasteful.  Very  precious  are 
the  ethos,  nomos,  muthos  and  logos  of  race.  They  are  prod- 
ucts of  very  slow  evolution  and  are  the  matrices  in  which 
character  is  molded.  They  fit  the  very  strain  and  blood,  for 
their  psyche  has  been  very  exactly  adjusted  to  the  soma  or  to 
the  very  body  and  its  diathesis,  so  that  along  wath  moral  goes 
also  mental  waste  and  often  in  the  next  generation  physical 
decay.  Therefore,  in  this  country  we  must  count  as  very 
potent  and  beneficent  all  the  recent  efforts  to  conserve  all  the 
old  household  arts  and  industries  which  recent  immigrants 
long  to  keep  alive — all  their  family  customs,  tales,  folklore, 
native  myths,  dances,  modes  of  life,  and  even,  to  some  extent, 
their  customs  of  dress  if  these  have  no  intrinsic  elements  of 
badness  in  them.  All  should  make  Scandinavian,  Jew, 
German,  Italian,  Armenian,  Teuton,  and  the  rest  aspire  to  be 
good  representatives  of  their  own  stock  rather  than  cheap 
imitation  Americans.  The  Irish  are  now  in  certain  respects 
perhaps  least  lacking  in  fatherland  pride  and  esteem,  for  some 
of  them  would  even  revive  their  own  ancient  Gaelic  tongue; 
but  even  they  neglect  many  old  industries  and  traditions  and 
have  turned  their  backs  forever  upon  the  simple  ancestral  ways 
of  life  as  it  was  led  at  home.  The  same  is  true  to  a  great 
extent  of  the  Germans. 

On  a  foreign  shore,  the  newcomer  should  idealize  all  the 
memories  of  what  is  left  behind  and  be  proud  of  his  stirp, 
should  magnify  all  that  is  good  in  it,  and  keep  green  its  best 
memories.  All  these  things  their  children  should  be  told 
reverently  and  thus  be  taught  to  respect  their  parents  and  what 
has  been  sacrificed  in  changing  abodes  for  them.  Native-born 
children,  too,  should  be  taught  the  tales  and  history  of  alien 
races  whose  offspring  they  meet  in  the  schoolroom ;  and  thus 
their  interest  and  respect  for  their  mates  should  be  maintained. 
To  this  end  each  teacher  should  have  sympathetic  knowledge 
of  the  ways  of  life  and  viewpoints  of  the  parents  of  each 
nationality  represented  in  his  or  her  grade.  The  Pole,  Turk, 
Frenchman,  Swede,  who  is  loyal  to  his  own  land  and  proud  of 
his  descent,  rather  than  the  flabby,  reconstructed  specimen  who 
apes  all  our  manners  at  the  expense  of  his  own,  makes  the  best 
American  citizen  because  he  adds  something  of  positive  value 
to  the  diversification  of  elements  of  which  true  Americanism 


MORAL   EDUCATION  339 

is  only  the  higher  unity.  Monotonous  uniformity  and  abnega- 
tion of  traits  inherited  or  inbred  for  generations  is  not  the  true 
American  quahty  and  is  very  subtly  dangerous  for  morals. 
Thus  pageants,  festivals,  every  commemoration  of  Old-World 
stories,  music,  march,  float,  dramatization,  helps  the  continuity 
of  development  crossing  the  Atlantic,  and  contributes  no  little 
to  establish  virtue  as  well  as  to  develop  the  intellect  and  the 
heart.  Every  vitalizing  new  touch  of  our  immigrants  and 
their  descendants  with  the  spirit  of  their  motherland  helps 
them  to  appreciate  the  best  that  is  here  and  enriches  our  own 
national  life.  Hence  these  are  soul-saving  agencies,  the  great 
value  of  which  is  at  length  going  to  be  adequately  appreciated. 

The  very  essence  of  youth  is  moral  enthusiasm.  All  the 
interests,  dreams,  and  activities  that  distinguish  it  from  the 
other  ages  of  life  are  at  bottom  attempts  to  translate  into  life 
and  conduct  what  the  spirit  of  youth,  to  which  all  things  are 
possible,  really  is  and  means ;  and  many  perish  because  they  are 
not  taught  and  cannot  find  out  the  adequate  and  right  ways  of 
expressing  what  is  in  them.  What  to  do  with  their  super- 
fluous energy  is  their  constant  problem.  They  must  and  will 
enjoy,  glow,  and  tingle  with  excitement  in  some  form.  If 
they  abandon  themselves  to  pleasure,  they  want  all  available 
forms  and  the  most  intense  degrees  of  it ;  but  the  imagination 
which  roots  in  sex  and  is  one  and  inseparable  with  it  is  for  a 
season  plasticity  itself.  Youth  fairly  lusts  for  adventure  of 
some  sort  and  is  capable  of  gallant,  chivalric  heroism.  The 
sense  of  justice  is  exhibited,  and  his  sympathy  with  the 
oppressed  may  bring  him  to  enlist  in  desperate  causes  to  punish 
those  who  outrage  it.  On  the  city  streets  we  meet  scores  of 
eager-eyed  youths  and  maidens  who  are  in  (juest  of  something 
to  do  or  be,  who  want  to  realize  some  ambition  or,  if  not  that, 
to  get  at  life  and  feel  it  in  all  its  breadth  and  depth  and  height. 
The  very  aspect  of  these  young  people  not  only  challenges  but 
almost  smites  and  bufifets  us  wiser  grown-ups  to  do  something 
to  help  them. 

To-day,  let  it  be  said  with  the  utmost  emphasis  and  re- 
peated over  and  over  again,  the  spirit  of  youth  is  the  one  and 
only  hope  of  this  country,  not  to  say  of  the  world — only  it  can 
save  us.  If  it  fades,  we  sink  into  hard,  grimy  industrialism 
or  ruthless  commercialism  or  selfishness  and  moral  material- 


340  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ism;  and  we  shall  be  known  to  the  world  as  the  people  who 
perished  from  lack  of  vision  because  youth,  which  means 
vision,  was  lost.  Toward  this  most  priceless  of  treasures  our 
public  sentiment  is  gross,  our  pedagogy  purblind  and  helpless. 
Thousands  of  young  Russians,  Italians,  Germans,  Arme- 
nians and  many  more  come  to  our  shores  fired  with  the 
highest  instincts  of  reform  and  social  regeneration.  This  is 
the  promised  land  of  their  hopes,  they  burn  with  zest  to  make 
the  world  better;  but  not  finding  here  the  specific  objects  of 
endeavor  they  were  used  to  at  home  and  not  being  guided  in 
making  due  adjustment,  many  of  them  slowly  sink  to  apathy 
and  indifference.  Our  very  atmosphere  of  easy  tolerance  to 
all  sorts  of  opinion  and  conduct  is  demoralizing.  Perhaps 
they  fight  windmills,  becoming  rather  absurd  anarchists  and 
atheists,  not  realizing  that  the  enemies  they  fought  at  home 
are  not  found  here.  Full  of  Wertherian  ferment,  they  lack 
the  power  of  adaptation,  which  the  refugees  who  came  here 
from  the  German  revolution  of  1848  had  in  such  a  high  degree 
and  to  whom  this  country  therefore  owes  so  much.  The  very 
spirit  of  unrest  and  disorder,  which  is  brought  from  so  many 
lands  to  our  shores,  if  rightly  directed,  might  be  an  agent  of 
great  good.  Our  land  is  a  smelting  pot  of  alien  races,  who 
bring  here  many  types  of  nationalistic  aspirations;  but  under 
our  neglect  and  indifference,  after  a  few  years,  our  immigrants 
■lose  their  conviction,  their  standards,  religion,  folk  ways,  and 
even  the  ideals  and  practices  of  their  various  home  industries, 
and  sink  to  the  dull,  monotonous  level  of  acquiescence.  A 
few  of  them,  too  mettlesome  to  submit  to  this  process,  despair 
and  take  refuge  in  suicide;  but  the  great  majority  are  taken 
possession  of  by  the  money  madness  which  soon  infects  them, 
and  find  the  realization  of  their  youthful  hopes  only  in  ideals 
of  sordid  wealth,  which  in  this  country  has  such  low  and 
vulgar  standards  and  which  usually  quite  spoils  the  third,  if 
not  the  second,  generation  by  the  slow  process  of  degeneration 
that  is  usually  at  once  physical,  mental,  and  moral,  which  it 
entails.^ 

But,  if  the  high  aspirations  of  youth  do  here  take  on  an 


'  See  the  admirable  work  by  Jane  Addams:  The  Spirit  of  Youth  and  the  City 
Streets,  New  York,  Macmillan,  1909,  162  p. 


MORAL   EDUCATION  34i 

auriferous  hue,  let  us  remember  that  there  are  yet  worse  things. 
To  dream  of  dominating  the  stock  market  for  a  day,  of 
palatial  houses,  of  buying  elections  and  legislators,  of  automo- 
biles, boxes  at  the  theater  and  opera,  fine  raiment,  luxuries, 
travel  and  ease  after  toil — is  better  than  not  to  dream  at  all 
and  is  surely  preferable  to  open  profligacy.  To  follow  the 
counsels  of  our  greatest  millionaires,  who  exhort  young  men 
to  work,  live  simply,  save,  and  nourish  a  youth  sublime,  in 
anticipation  of  magnificent  riches  in  the  end  with  all  the  power 
it  brings,  is  vastly  better  than  to  drift  and  dissipate  by  indulg- 
ing the  lower  propensities.  But  along  with  and  far  above 
this  should  surely  go  the  passion  for  social  righteousness  which 
should  be  molded  and  given  definite  direction  toward  forms 
of  amelioration  and  relief  from  industrial  oppression  in  its 
countless  forms — the  checking  of  municipal  corruption  and 
corporate  greed,  the  ruthless  mania  for  pelf  and  power  which 
grinds  the  life  out  of  women  and  children  who  work,  the 
vampires  who  pander  to  lust  and  debauch  youth  with  drink, 
who  adulterate  food  and  even  drugs,  and  prey  upon  the  virtue 
of  young  girls.  If  religion  which  brought  the  Puritan  and  the 
cavalier — the  one  with  his  rigorous  conscience  and  the  other 
with  his  ideals  of  honor — is  losing  its  pristine  power,  and  if 
newcomers  are  prone  to  lose  their  national,  social,  and  historic 
ideals  beyond  the  hope  of  rescue  by  pageants  and  all  the  new 
efforts  to  restore  and  revivify  their  traditions,  household  traits, 
and  family  customs,  and  if  even  the  ideals  of  democracy  and 
the  sublimating  and  magnificent  concepts  of  self-government 
of  the  people,  by  the  people,  which  brought  one  of  the  greatest 
sources  of  hope  and  confidence  that  has  ever  come  to  the 
human  race — have  ceased  to  be  an  inspiration  to-day.  there 
still  remains  one  last  resource,  and  that  is  the  economic  con- 
servation, specific,  practical  direction,  of  the  ardor  of  the  youth- 
ful zest  for  life,  by  finding  tasks  worthy  their  mettle  for  each. 
This,  and  not  any  expectation  of  definite,  divine  guidance  or 
intervention  or  a  purblind  faith  in  national  destiny  could,  if 
stored  and  turned  into  the  right  channels,  sweep  away  at  short 
notice  most  of  the  evils  and  dangers  that  threaten  youth  and 
society,  and  restore  the  family,  politics,  and  business  to  a  sound 
basis  and  give  tangible  reality  to  what  is  now  too  often  wasted 
in  flitting,  iridescent  dreams,  in  sporadic  and  uncoordinated 


342  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

efforts,  in  negative  criticisms  that  condemn  but  cannot  con- 
struct, and  grow  extravagant  as  they  grow  impotent. 

Our  great  national  need,  then,  is  a  new  interpretation  or 
dispensation  of  the  higher  meaning  of  youth,  that  shall  make 
an  end  of  its  present  martyrdom  by  monotony,  high  specializa- 
tion of  machinery  and  office  work,  by  gaudy  temptation 
flaunted  in  hours  of  relaxation,  rest,  and  moral  exhaustion. 
We  need  a  theater  that  shall  shape  ideals,  give  standards  of 
conduct,  and  preform  choices,  and  a  school  curriculum  that 
is  rich  in  ethical  interests,  which  is  all  youth  really  cares  for, 
gymnasia  that  bring  health,  exercise,  and  excitement  without 
exhaustion.  We  must  take  possession  of  the  imagination 
during  these  critical  years  when  it  is  nine  tenths  of  life,  must 
provide  abundant  social  opportunity  where  the  young  can 
gratify  their  passion  for  being  together  in  a  sanifying  environ- 
ment ;  we  must  provide  modes  of  exploiting  for  good  the  spirit 
of  adventure  which  attracts  youth  in  shoals  from  the  country 
to  the  city,  which  is  now  in  a  stage  of  municipal  evolution 
which  is  very  dangerous  for  them,  because  we  have  not  learned 
to  purge  our  great  centers  of  festering  moral  contagion.  We 
must  awaken  the  church  and  the  school  from  their  long  apathy 
and  ignorance  concerning  the  deeper  needs  of  the  young, 
organize  isolated  agencies  for  helping  them  get  together  for 
greater  effectiveness,  set  all,  if  possible,  even  the  tainted  youth, 
to  work  to  rescue  others,  for  this  is  often  a  way  of  salvation 
for  them.  Never  was  the  higher  pedagogy,  which  includes 
statecraft,  family,  school  and  religion,  called  to  so  high  and 
hard  a  task — not  in  the  days  of  Socrates,  when  the  Athenian 
youth  were  exposed  to  some  of  the  same  deteriorating  in- 
fluences, not  in  the  days  of  Fichte,  who  spoke  to  the  academic 
youth  of  the  Fatherland  and  was  heard  by  them  as  no  one 
ever  was  before  or  since. 

With  weakness  of  fecundity  comes  loss  of  a  sense  of  what 
childhood  and  youth  mean  and  need,  and  so  in  the  face  of  this 
gigantic  problem,  the  dimensions  of  which  the  wisest  and 
greatest  minds  are  now  only  just  beginning  to  grasp,  we  have 
scores  of  partial  and  often  trivial  ways  of  solving  the  great 
problem  of  moral  education  enumerated  above.  The,  slightest 
of  them  are  well  meant  and  no  doubt  of  service;  but  all  of 
them  together  are  inadequate  to  meet  the  situation  to-day, 


MORAL   EDUCATION  343 

which  is  simply  that  of  national  survival  and  perpetuity  in  the 
largest  and  most  comprehensive  sense.  Given  the  age  of 
youthful  idealism,  yearnings  and  restless  tension,  charged  with 
all  that  is  worthy  of  survival  from  all  past  ages  of  man's 
phyletic  history,  an  age  when  Nature  dowers  each  of  her  chil- 
dren with  their  second  and  last  great  heritage  of  moral  mo- 
mentum to  do,  be,  dare,  and  achieve,  as  if  she  sought  to  vest 
each  individual  with  the  most  and  best  that  ever  was  in  the 
race — given  these,  the  only  thing  that  is  of  ultimate  worth  in 
the  world,  the  most  precious  and  supreme  of  all  things — what 
shall  we  do  with  it?  The  way  this  question  is  answered  is 
the  best  test  of  an  age  or  a  nation.  If  it  aborts  and  runs  to 
waste,  we  perish  miserably,  if  slowly.  If  it  has  full  headway, 
is  turned  on  aright,  it  has  cleansing,  purifying  motive  power 
enough  to  run  all  the  agencies  of  betterment  and  to  regenerate 
even  moribund  lines  of  endeavor.  It  not  only  brings  the 
vision  without  which  the  people  perish,  but  gives  it  reality. 
All  this  is  possible  and  is  the  supreme  duty  of  the  present. 
Those  who  have  ears,  now  hear  the  bitter,  if  unconscious,  cry 
of  youth  in  distress  for  want  of  guidance  into  better  things. 
Our  material  civilization  does  not  satisfy  their  deepest  long- 
ings. The  old  oracles  of  the  church,  if  not  dumb,  are  hoarse 
and  indistinct  and  too  often  disregarded  by  them.  Their 
natural  guardians  are,  some  of  them,  asleep  at  their  post  and 
dreaming  of  old  issues  for  which  the  present  has  no  use; 
others  are  bustling  and  perhaps  fevered  with  anxiety,  or  put- 
ting their  faith  in  petty  and  very  diverse  devices,  which  are 
now  utterly  uncoordinated  and  thus  add  to  the  confusion. 
Social  workers,  who  are  doing  the  best  actual  work,  are  prone 
to  be  rutty,  and  to  lose  open-mindedness  for  the  special  fields 
cultivated  by  others.  Thus  we  need  a  great  synthesis  of 
moral  effort  such  as  the  world  has  never  seen,  to  bring  together 
all  the  real  apostles  of  the  new  life — those  who  work  and 
those  who  give — and  to  construct  out  of  all  the  various  ele- 
ments a  national  psychological  and  ethical  enginery  to  conserve 
the  resources  of  youth,  prevent  the  present  appalling  waste  of 
it.  and  to  store  the  wealth  of  waters  of  righteousness  that  come 
so  directly  from  heaven,  and  to  canalize  our  entire  social  life 
that  its  streams  may  irrigate  and  refresh  every  part  of  it  and 
meet  every  present  need.     The  work  to  whicii  we  are  called  is 


344  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

thus  one  of  conserving  the  highest  of  all  our  racial  and 
national  resources  and  to  convert  arid  moral  wastes  into  fields 
teeming  vv^ith  harvest.  This  task  cannot  wait.  The  call  is 
like  that  with  which  the  New  Testament  opens — its  tocsin 
words  are  now  and  here.  The  realization  of  long-delayed 
hopes,  the  averting  of  long-felt  dangers  must  be  accomplished 
at  once.  To  do  this  we  must  call  home  our  hopes  for  a  far 
future,  our  desires  for  a  distant  good,  and  cash  all  their 
specious  promises  into  immediate  and  present  effectiveness. 
This  makes  great  epochs,  and  the  formula  for  little  and  mean 
ones  is :  Great  plans  for  the  future,  pious  hopes  for  all  goods 
that  are  remote,  and  nothing  here  and  now.  Has  any  race 
ever  had  so  urgent  and  imperative  a  call  to  do  a  present  duty  ? 


CHAPTER    VI 
children's  lies:  their  psychology  and  pedagogy 

Impossibility  of  attaining  pure  truth — Definitions  of  truth  and  lying — The 
lying  passion  in  pubescent  girls  seen  in  the  history  of  witchcraft — 
Early  spiritual  mediums  in  this  country — Felida  X — The  Creery  Sis- 
ters— The  English  Society  for  Psychical  Research — The  Watseka 
Wonder — Contemporary  instances  of  elaborate,  continuous,  and  acted 
lies  by  girls — The  childish  errors  of  observation — Stern  and  Aussage 
tests — Statistical  and  other  studies  of  lies — Innocent  lies  due  to  vivid 
fancy — Phobias  of  departure  from  exact,  literal  truth — Noble  lies  to 
save  life  and  shield  from  discomfort — Make-believes — Pathology  of 
lying — Palliatives — Its  pedagogy. 

If  every  form  and  degree  of  lying  were  banished  from  the 
world  and  nothing  but  the  exact  truth  were  told  and  acted, 
and  everything  done  were  exiguously  and  literally  honest, 
what  would  become  of  business  with  all  its  promoters  and 
prospectuses ;  of  all  the  new  arts  of  advertising,  so  largely 
made  up  of  seductive  misrepresentation^;  of  buying,  selling, 
trading,  dickering  about  prices;  of  specious  adulterations  in 
drugs,  foods,  and  drinks,  and  in  manufacturing  articles  to  sell 
rather  than  to  wear  and  do  service?  What  would  become  of 
many  reputations  so  scrupulously  groomed  and  cultivated,  of 
many  social  forms,  conventionalities,  amenities,  compliments, 
fibs,  white  lies,  etc.,  so  deeply  ingrained  in  our  very  forms  of 
salutation,  if  not  in  language  itself?  Where  would  be  all  the 
hypocritical  enthusiams,  the  pretended  knowledge,  the  affected 
interests,  the  fashionable  likes  and  dislikes,  the  acted  wealth 
by  people  really  straitened,  and  the  very  forms  of  the  bodies 
of  men  and  women  when  fully  dressed?  What  should  wc  do 
about  diplomacy  and  politics?  Oscar  Wilde  claimed  that  the 
love  of  truth  was  increasing  so  rapidly  as  to  threaten  the  very 
existence  of  literature,  which  like  art  itself  is  shot  through 
with  lies,  as  Plato  used  the  word.     What  would  become  of 

345 


346  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

most  forms  of  religion  unless,  of  course,  it  be  our  own,  and 
in  fact,  of  everything-  that  mankind  up  to  a  few  generations 
ago  has  held  to  and  lived  and  died  by,  believing  it  to  be  very 
truth  of  very  truth  ? 

If  utter  truth  means  a  loss  of  these,  what  a  bald,  coarse, 
cruel,  monstrous,  melancholy,  stark-naked  world  it  would 
leave  us!  What  pitiful  figures  all  sorts  of  reformers  cut  who 
want  to  strip  off  every  delusion,  and  even  illusion  which  men 
need  in  such  rank  profusion !  A  clever  story  somewhere  tells 
the  pathetic  case  of  a  man  who  tried  to  tell  the  precise  truth 
for  a  whole  day,  and  at  its  close  found  himself  without  busi- 
ness, or  friends,  a  social  outcast,  and  involved  in  endless  com- 
plications even  with  his  family.  We  can  no  more  live  on  pure 
truth  than  we  can  breathe  pure  oxygen  or  nourish  ourselves 
with  peptones  only,  for,  like  precious  metals,  truth  needs  some 
alloy.  To  be  utterly  and  unjugglingly  truthful  always  and 
everywhere  is  often  heartless,  if  not  brutal.  A  Hindoo  tale 
tells  of  a  man  sent  to  hell  for  speaking  the  truth  when  he 
should  have  lied  to  save  a  life.  The  real  truth  is  not  merely 
the  single  fact  or  event  mentioned,  but  the  whole  situation  of 
which  it  is  a  part.  No  man  can  think  deeply  on  the  question 
of  truth  and  falsehood  without  seeing  the  need  of  some 
thoughtful  discriminations  which  are  sometimes  branded  by 
the  name  of  casuistry.  Indeed,  it  is  because  our  notions  of 
truth  diverge  so  widely  from  our  practice  that  the  vulgar 
theory  of  it  has  made  it  a  wooden  fetich.  Were  it  again 
vitalized  and  brought  into  contact  with  life  there  would  be  less 
cant  about  truth  by  those  whose  life  is  permeated  with  false- 
hoods. There  are  hysterical  gossips  who  must  tell  all  they 
know,  no  matter  what  the  consequences,  forgetting  that  con- 
cealment of  much  if  not  most  of  the  worst  that  we  know,  is 
often  one  of  the  very  highest  social  duties.  The  formula  of 
the  legal  oath  to  tell  the  whole  truth  applied  indiscriminately 
everywhere  would  devastate  society.  Secrets  for  ourselves, 
for  two,  for  a  group,  a  fraternity,  an  army,  etc.,  are  virtues, 
and  contribute  very  much  to  cement  the  bonds  of  true  friend- 
ship. W.  J.  Kerby  well  says,  "  Our  attitude  toward  truth  is 
not  a  truthful  one."  Virtue  must  fit  the  situation,  and  the 
straightforward  man  not  only  states  the  fact,  but  conveys  the 
true  impression  about  it  and  its  setting.     To  be  false  to  a 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  347 

lower,  is  sometimes  necessary  to  be  true  to  a  higher,  trutli. 
Despicable  as  is  the  hypocrite,  especially  he  of  the  sanctimo- 
nious type,  the  Pecksniff,  Tartuffe,  the  sham  pretender,  the 
man  or  woman  of  dual  life,  amusing  as  is  the  shallow  braggart 
who  is  at  heart  an  arrant  coward,  e.  g.,  of  the  Falstaff  variety, 
the  chronic  and  notorious  liar  whose  word  no  one  l>elieves, 
nevertheless,  there  are  noble  lies  that  safeguard  honor,  save 
life  and  well-earned  reputations,  conserve  public  and  private 
weal  and  great  institutions,  bury  noxious  scandal,  and  prevent 
impertinent  intrusion  into  private  affairs  that  are  no  one's 
business  save  those  concerned.  "  Tell  the  truth,  my  son,  in 
business,  politics,   everywhere,   unless  a   lady's  reputation   is 

concerned,  and  then  lie  like ,"  said  a  world-wise  father. 

It  took  ages  to  learn  that  honesty  is  on  the  whole  the  best 
policy  in  practical  life,  and  who  is  there  who  does  not  repeat — 
and  also  violate  this  familiar  saw?  All,  says  an  Eastern 
adage,  are  honest  in  spots,  but  no  one,  not  even  the  sage,  is 
so  all  over.  There  are  gracious  lies  that  sweeten,  others  that 
advance,  and  yet  others  that  make  life  more  efficient  for  good. 

From  the  great  German  alienist  Heinroth,  early  in  the  last 
century,  who  in  a  ponderous  treatise  on  insanity  described  its 
various  forms  as  lies  whereby,  instead  of  accepting  one's  own 
nature,  alien  roles  were  assumed  or  subjective  concepts  were 
forced  upon  the  environment,  down  to  Janet  and  others,  who 
conceive  mental  decay  as  loss  of  vital  rapport  with  present 
reality,  and  to  the  Freud  school,  who  interpret  so  many  forms 
of  psychic  alienations  as  repressions  of  actual  experiences  and 
bring  restoration  to  health  by  recall  and  confession  not  entirely 
unlike  the  way  the  Catholic  Church  administers  confession  of 
sin — psychiatry  has  repeatedly  associated  the  difference  be- 
tween sanity  and  insanity  with  that  between  truth  and  falsity, 
while  the  Protestant  Church  conceives  conversion  and  regener- 
ation as  sloughing  off  the  false  self  and  falling  back  on  what 
God  and  Nature  intended  us  to  be  in  making  the  most  and 
best  of  it. 

Nothing  is  plainer  in  most  concrete  cases  than  the  differ- 
ence between  truth  and  its  opposites,  and  nothing  is  practically 
more  momentous  than  this  distinction  often  is.  Yet  there  is 
and  always  has  been  the  greatest  diversity  in  conceiving  \xy{h 
and  neither  has  been  nor  can  be  satisfactorilv  <lefined.     Re- 


348  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ligion  claims  to  give  us  truth,  pure  and  straight  from  its 
ultimate  source.  The  chief  quest  of  science  is  truth,  and  logic 
seeks  to  formulate  the  methods  of  both  attaining  and  testing 
it.  Yet  pragmatism  tells  us  there  is  no  such  thing  as  ultimate 
truth,  but  that  that  is  truest,  for  either  an  age  or  an  individual 
that  works  best.  Hence  truth  is  diversified,  relative  and 
changed  with  every  stage  of  development,  and  we  must  ever 
be  working  over  our  ideas.  Perhaps  the  most  interesting  con- 
temporary group  of  thinkers  in  the  psychic  field  is  now  chal- 
lenging consciousness  itself,  which  has  so  long  been  the  oracle 
of  philosophy,  as  never  saying  what  it  means,  but  always  deal- 
ing with  symbols  that  need  laborious  interpretations,  the 
canons  of  which  they  are  now  attempting  to  evolve.  To 
attain  truth — exact,  perfect,  final — has  always  been  the 
supreme  quest  of  thought,  but  the  old  skeptical  query  is  always 
recurring,  whether  there  is  any  such  thing,  and  whether  if  it 
exists  our  minds  can  grasp  it,  and  if  they  can,  whether  it  can 
be  correctly  expressed  by  language  or  otherwise  imparted,  and 
if  uttered  whether  it  can  be  received  purely.  If  we  accept  the 
axioms  of  logic  or  science  of  to-day  as  truth,  those  who  know 
it  are  very  few,  and  over  against  them  we  have  vast  masses 
of  honest  ignorance,  sincerely  held  superstitions  and  delusions, 
that  criticism  cannot  expel.  If  moral  educational  practice  had 
to  wait  on  theory  we  might  well  begin  this  simple  dissertation 
in  antique  wise  with  the  fervid  prayer  to  the  muse  of  truth, 
Aletheia,  for  guidance.  Happily,  however,  the  treatment  of 
this  theme  does  not  lead  us  to  these  altitudes,  nor  do  we  have 
to  warp  a  weary  way  among  the  ultimate  questions  that 
underlie  the  quest  for  truth.  We  are  seeking  here  only 
pedagogic  guidance  in  the  light  of  reason,  and  from  recent 
studies  of  childhood  and  youth.  Do  our  normal  boys  and 
girls  all  lie?  If  so,  must  they,  and  why?  What  is  the  dif- 
ference between  normal  and  psychological  lies?  How  should 
we  treat  the  very  many  and  diverse  classes  of  violators  of  and 
deviators  from  truth?  - 

If  we  limit  lying  to  conscious  departure  from  truth,  spoken 
or  acted,  when  we  know  better,  as  is  the  popular  conception 
of  it  which  has  too  long  sufficed  for  daily  life,  it  needs  but  the 
most  superficial  scrutiny  of  obvious  psychic  facts  and  processes 
to  sliow  us  how  very  inadequate  this  conception  is.     The  fact 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  349 

is  that  a  fabricator  of  ideals,  an  artist,  is  often  a  creator  of 
things  that  are  not,  and  he  knows  it.  The  child  in  reverie 
believes,  yet  at  the  same  time  knows  that  his  dreameries  are 
false.  He  makes  believe  so  much  that  is  not  so.  How  little 
there  is  in  common  between  these  often  beautiful  lies  of  the 
imagination  and  the  denial  by  a  child  of  its  most  palpable 
wrong  deed  to  escape  punishment,  or  in  the  lie  of  the  hysterical 
who  finds  exultation  in  inventing  a  train  of  incidents  on 
purpose  to  mislead  or  work  mischief,  or  is  fascinated  by  being 
able  to  look  at  black  and  solemnly  swear  that  it  is  white,  or 
asseverates  that  any  whim  or  fancy  that  pops  up  in  a  dis- 
organized brain  is  objective  fact! 

H.  J.  Eisenhofer  ^  says  that  the  definition  of  truth  as  the  agreement 
of  thought  with  being  is  defective  because  neither  the  idealist  nor 
the  realist  can  explain  how  thought  can  grasp  being,  which  is  so  toto 
gcnere  different.  Truth  is  really  giving  adequate  expression  to  the 
content  of  the  mind  rather  than  incongruence  of  the  latter  with 
outer  things.  Descartes  made  four  rules  to  be  observed  in  the  quest 
of  truth.  The  first  was  that  nothing  must  be  accepted  which  was  not 
clear  and  certain.  Logic  is  aided  in  its  quest  of  truth  by  the  principle 
of  identity  and  contradiction.  ^Esthetics  comprise  the  feelings  or 
ideas  of  the  true,  good,  and  beautiful,  etc. 

What  is  the  feeling  of  art  for  truth  ?  Lindner  believed  in  an 
intellectual  feeling  which,  as  the  result  of  a  judgment,  passed  from 
the  stadium  of  reflection  which  was  more  or  less  painful  to  that  of 
conviction  which  was  agreeable,  and  cites  the  joy  of  Pythagoras 
and  Archimedes  upon  making  their  historic  eureka  discoveries.  Jahn 
makes  a  special  group  of  intellectual  feelings  which  react  to  thought 
with  the  verdict  true.  Indeed,  Drbal  says  that  the  sense  of  truth 
precedes  and  impels  to  knowledge.  Krug  thinks  that  it  is  a  dim  con- 
sciousness of  the  grounds  upon  which  the  validity  of  our  judgment 
depends.  It  is  a  kind  of 'divination  or  presentiment.  Racrwnld  says 
that  the  case  is  like  an  awakened  somnambulist  who  could  not  tell 
how  he  came  to  be  where  he  found  himself  on  awakening.  VVundt 
calls  intellectual  feelings  logical,  but  deems  them  very  complex.  The 
feeling  for  truth  is  a  strong  instinct  or  guide  and  compass.  Some 
think  it  gives  us  the  power  to  apprehend  and  is  superior  to  all  forms 
of  knowledge  and  understanding.  But  in  general  we  have  to  deal 
with  resultant  psychic  states.  Love  of  truth  is  the  mainspring  of 
knowledge. 

As  with  all  imponderables  it  is  impossible  to  cultivate  the  love  of 

'  Wahrheitsgcfuhl  und  Wahrht-itsliebe.  Rein's  Encyklopadischcs  Handbuth  d. 
Padagogik,  1899,  vol.  7,  pp.  538-544- 


350  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

truth  by  direct  methods.  It  has  been  said  that  there  is  but  one 
virtue  and  that  is  truth,  and  but  one  vice  and  that  is  lying.  One 
leads  to  hfe  and  health  and  the  other  to  destruction.  If  there  is 
only  one  sin,  even  acts  are  sinful  in  just  the  degree  in  which  the  lie 
is  found  in  them.  Truthfulness  is  the  very  basis  of  social  inter- 
course. Dorner  thinks  it  is  mostly  justice,  and  that  it  arises  from 
the  idea  of  right.  Natorp  says  it  is  a  virtue  of  reason.  Hoff- 
ding  thinks  that  it  involves  a  certain  surrender  as  over  against 
self-affirmation,  and  that  between  these  two  it  must  square  with 
justice. 

But  we  wish  here  to  be  practical  and  concrete,  and  so  with- 
out further  premise  let  us  first  glance  at  a  collection  of  cases 
which  perhaps  illustrate  the  most  diametrical  opposite  of 
truth,  viz.,  the  chronic  diathesis  of  falsehood.  Such  cases  are 
most  common  among  barely  pubescent  or  pre-pubescent  girls. 
In  many  an  outbreak  of  weird  psycho-physic  phenomena  in 
families  and  in  communities  the  precept  should  be,  "  Ne  cher- 
chez  pas  la  femme  mais  le  tendron." 

The  history  of  witchcraft  in  Western  Europe,  where  the  mania 
had  a  vastly  greater  development  than  in  this  country,  brings  pubes- 
cent girls  into  frequent  and  strange  prominence  for  some  two  cen- 
turies and  a  half.  We  have  here  no  space  for  details  but  can  only 
point  out  a  few  of  the  most  flagrant  instances,  such  as  the  Throgmor- 
ton  daughters,  the  eldest  very  imaginative  and  melancholy,  with  her 
mind  inflamed  with  ghosts  and  witches,  who  felt  pains  and  charged 
that  a  certain  old  woman  who  had  once  looked  at  her  had  bewitched 
her.  Upon  trial  and  torture,  the  old  lady  confessed  that  she  had  cast 
spells  and  caused  the  death  of  various  persons,  and  she  and  her 
relatives  were  condemned  to  be  hanged  and  their  bodies  burned,  in 
1593.  The  Pacey  girl,  aged  nine,  fell  lame  and  then  had  a  fit,  "  feeHng 
pricked  and  shrieking  like  a  whelp,"  vomiting  pins  and  nails.  The 
pins  were  crooked  and  brought  by  flies.  This  was  charged  upon  one 
after  another  until  no  less  than  thirteen  were  convicted  and  the  next 
day  the  girl  and  her  sisters  were  quite  well.  Occasionally  young  girls 
were  themselves  condemned,  and  executed  as  witches.  The  number 
of  children  involved,  in  fact,  Mackay  ^  tells  us,  is  "  horrible  to  think 
of."  This  was  in  England,  but  the  same  was  true  in  France  and 
Germany.  In  one  case  the  devil  was  said  to  have  taken  the  children 
to  a  gravel  pit,  conjured  and  performed  with  them,  and  beaten  them. 
One  girl  swore  she  was  carried  through  the  air  and  when  very  high 
uttered  the  name  of  Jesus  and  the  devil  let  her  drop,  but  finally  healed 

'  Charles  Mackay:  Memoirs  of  Extraordinary  Popular  Delusions.  Bentley, 
London,  1841,  3  vols. 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  351 

the  wound  which  the  fall  made  in  her  side  and  took  her  to  Blockula. 
"  The  lying  whimsies  of  a  few  sick  children  encouraged  by  fooHsh 
parents  and  drawn  out  by  superstitious  neighbors  were  sufficient  to 
set  a  country  in  a  flame.  Some  of  the  poor  children  who  were 
burned  would  have  been  sent  to  an  infirmary  to-day  ;^ others  would 
have  been  flogged.  The  credulity  of  the  parents  would  have  been 
laughed  at."  In  New  England  the  witch  mania  really  began  with 
the  young  daughter  of  the  mason  Goodwin,  who  charged  that  the 
devil  and  Dame  Glover  were  tormenting  her.  The  theme  was  taken 
up  by  the  two  Parvis  girls,  who  fell  into  daily  fits.  Where  there  were 
three  or  four  girls  in  the  family,  they  worked  on  the  diseased  imagina- 
tion of  the  others  and  things  were  worse. 

The  famous  seeress  of  Prevorst,  Frederica  Hauflfe,  daughter  of  a 
charcoal  burner,  though  usually  gay,  had  strange  spells  of  shuddering 
as  if  influenced  by  things  others  did  not  feel.  At  the  age  of  twelve 
she  was  sent  away  to  be  trained  by  her  grandfather,  a  superstitious 
man,  fond  of  visiting  graveyards  by  night.  This  gave  her  chills 
and  she  was  thought  to  feel  the  presence  of  the  dead.  Once  she 
broke  into  his  room  at  night  and  announced  she  had  seen  a  tall  dark 
figure  in  the  hall  and  so  her  strange  clairvoyant  powers  grew  apace 
till  she  made  a  loveless  marriage  at  nineteen  and  from  her  wedding 
day  her  health  broke.  She  now  developed  her  remarkable  series  of 
visions,  sensitiveness  to  metals,  crystal  gazing,  musical  phenomena, 
finally  saved  ghosts  from  eternal  pain  by  her  prayers  and  became  a 
minister  to  distressed  spirits,  hearing  their  horrid  confessions  and 
teaching  them  prayers  essential  to  salvation.  She  spoke  in  unknown 
tongues,  described  the  mysterious  hereafter,  detected  obscure  dis- 
eases, and  finally  her  parents  brought  her  to  the  famous  doctor,  poet, 
and  visionary,  Kerner,  who  regarded  her  as  belonging  to  another 
world  and  became  her  impresario  and  her  Boswell,  writing  a  biog- 
raphy "  of  this  delicate  flower  who  lived  on  sunbeams,"  which  is  a 
record  of  mingled  tragedy  and  illusion. 

A  Methodist  farmer  named  Fox  had  two  daughters,  aged  fifteen 
and  twelve.  The  house  consisted  of  one  floor  with  a  cellar  and  loft. 
March  31,  1848,  the  Fox  family  went  to  bed  early,  having  been  dis- 
turbed by  strange  noises,  the  girls  sleeping  in  another  bed  in  the  same 
room.  Raps,  at  command,  rapped  sound  for  sound  the  noises  the  girls 
made  by  snapping  their  fingers,  in  ways  which  showed  intelligence. 
The  news  spread  and  there  was  great  agitation.  Parents  and  visitors 
asked  questions  and  raps  answered.  A  rumor  was  revived  that  a 
previous  tenant  had  heard  knockings  and  other  noises  and  it  was 
immediately  supposed  that  this  was  the  work  of  ghosts.  In  answer 
to  questions  raps  indicated  that  a  man  had  been  fornierly  murdered 
for  five  hundred  dollars  and  buried  in  the  cellar,  an<l  there  was  a  ru- 
mor that  digging  had  revealed  teeth,  bones,  and  a  broken  bow.  The 
age  of  nearly  all  the  neighbors  was  correctly  rapped,  the  number  of 
children,  and  deaths.  Later  one  Fox  girl  went  to  Rochester  and  the 
other  to  Auburn  and  in  both  places  tiptomania  broke  out.     An  older 


352  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEMS 

married  daughter  became  a  medium.  Podmore*  says  there  were  soon 
some  two  hundred  families  where  such  phenomena  broke  out  in  Ohio 
and  a  hundred  mediums  in  New  York  that  met  private  circles.  In 
1 85 1  three  physicians  investigated  and  reported  that  the  noises  could 
be  made  by  piovements  of  the  knee  joints.  With  the  feet  wide  apart 
and  on  cushions  and  the  legs  straight  there  were  no  raps,  nor  were 
there  when  the  knees  were  tightly  held.  It  developed  that  various 
people  could  make  similar  raps  by  the  toe  joints,  that  the  raps  were 
better  if  the  feet  were  warm,  etc.  The  younger  Fox  sister  is  said  to 
have  explained  that  if  her  foot  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  door  the 
raps  would  be  heard  at  the  top  if  she  looked  at  the  top,  and  to  have 
admitted  that  she  made  them  with  her  toe  joints  and  could  make 
them  with  both  knees  and  ankles.  One  of  the  sisters  gave  a  public 
demonstration  of  how  the  raps  could  be  produced,  but  this  was  after- 
wards denied  or  recanted. 

In  1852  an  Ohio  farmer  named  Koons,  finding  his  eight  children 
gifted,  built  a  log  cabin  equipped  with  spirit  instruments,  where 
strange  physical  manifestations  occurred  ascribed  to  a  large  band  of 
pre-Adamite  men  and  women. ^ 

A  Connecticut  clergyman  married  a  widow  with  four  children,  a 
girl  sixteen,  a  boy  eleven,  and  two  younger,  and  soon  wondrous  dis- 
turbances broke  out.  In  an  attic  were  found  eleven  "  figures  of  an- 
gelic beauty  which  were  really  dolls  in  attitudes  of  devotion,  and  these 
were  thought  to  have  been  mysteriously  constructed."  Once,  alone  in 
his  study,  turning  his  back,  the  old  gentleman  found  his  writing  paper 
covered  with  hieroglyphics.  Chairs  were  moved,  missiles  thrown 
through  the  glass,  letters  were  written  without  hands,  the  boy  was 
hung  on  a  tree,  the  girl  was  tied,  forks  bent,  warm  hands  felt  under 
the  table.  A.  J.  Davis  investigated  and  found  the  raps  due  to  "  vital 
electricity  "  discharged  from  the  older  boy.  One  investigator  after 
violent  rappings  and  throwings  sprang  to  the  room  of  the  sixteen- 
year-old  girl  and  found  her  in  bed  but  nervous,  palpitating,  and  with 
a  very  red  face.  When  the  boy  went  to  school  the  spirits  tore  his 
books  and  tore  his  clothes.  The  disturbances  all  centered  about  the 
older  boy  and  girl.  The  spirit  of  mischief  often  seemed  to  take 
possession  of  them. 

The  history  of  the  earlier  days  of  spiritism  in  America  is  a  very 
sad  one.  In  scores  of  houses  there  were  strange  doings,  spirit  mes- 
sengers, often  hoaxes  and  fiction.  Our  country  was  then  sparsely 
populated  and  this  and  the  character  and  amount  of  popular  educa- 
tion and  the  absence  of  intellectual  centers  caused  a  great  deal  of 
crude  but  vigorous  thinking  and  many  a  strange,  weird  movement. 

A  young  daughter  of  Judge  Edmunds  rather  suddenly  became  a 

'  Frank  Podmore:  Modem  Spiritualism;  a  History  and  a  Criticism.  Methuen, 
London,  1902,  2  vols. 

'  H.  Addington  Bruce:  The  Riddle  of  Personality.  Moffat,  Yard,  N.  Y.,  1908, 
p.  247. 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  353 

medium,  speaking  several  languages.  There  was  weird  music,  to 
which  spirits  sometimes  beat  time  by  raps ;  clothing,  hair,  and  beard 
were  tweaked,  bells  rung,  and  the  religious  sense  was  so  strong  that 
everything  was  g^ven  a  supernal  interpretation.  In  1873  some  young 
boys  who  had  read  a  book  entitled  "  The  Medium  and  Daybreak  " 
held  a  dark  seance,  one  of  them  falling  into  a  trance  and  writing 
poetry  in  mirror  script  from  Thomas  Campbell.  This  and  his  bab- 
bling, ascribed  to  a  great  Indian  medicine  man,  were  accepted,  as  was 
a  farewell  to  earth  by  Poe.  A  girl  of  thirteen  saw  a  child  in  a  white 
pinafore  running  along  the  hall  without  sound  of  footsteps.  In  1883 
Podmore  tells  us  of  a  servant  girl  of  sixteen,  the  daughter  of  an  inva- 
lid mother,  who  caused  all  sorts  of  things  to  fly  about  the  room,  fall 
downstairs  or  jump  about,  leap  into  the  fire,  go  into  the  air  and  fall. 
After  a  good  deal  of  superstition,  when  this  girl  departed  all  these 
phenomena  ceased.  In  1894  at  Durweston,  England,  many  spirit  phe- 
nomena centered  about  a  consumptive  hysterical  girl  of  thirteen.  In 
Arundel,  in  1884,  there  were  strange  scratches,  messages,  movements, 
images,  antics  of  the  clock,  centering  about  another  girl  of  thirteen. 
In  Berkshire,  in  1895,  a  girl  of  twelve  with  weird,  uncanny  look,  did 
many  things,  pretending  to  look  in  another  direction  and  always  deny- 
ing everything,  but  was  finally  detected  in  a  long  series  of  wild  per- 
formances. A  Shropshire  girl  of  thirteen,  who  had  made  many  things 
move  and  hang  apparently  unsuspended  and  who  used  to  cry  out  that 
an  old  lady  was  choking  her,  finally  confessed  and  showed  how  she 
carried  out  her  performances.  Another  tall,  pale  girl  of  twelve,  in 
the  south  of  England,  who  had  outgrown  her  strength,  caused  a  good 
deal  of  popular  excitement,  saw  all  sorts  of  strange  things,  was 
bound,  beaten,  caused  spirit  touches  and  thumps.  Podmore  enumer- 
ates eleven  such  cases.  Bruce,  in  his  "  Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost- 
Hunters,"  New  York,  1908,  made  a  study  of  the  well-known  story 
of  the  drummer  of  Tedworth,  whose  ghost  was  supposed  to  have  re- 
turned to  punish  those  who  had  maltreated  and  played  all  kinds  of 
tricks  on  him,  and  concludes  that  the  root  of  all  the  disturbances 
was  a  girl  of  ten  and  her  sister,  since  wherever  there  were  scratches 
and  raps  these  naughty  juveniles  were  found  near,  chuckling  at  their 
mischief,  which  many  thought  so  mysterious.  In  this  case  they  did 
not  cause  the  first  outbreak  of  the  excitement  but  caught  the  spirit 
of  it.  Bruce  also  thinks  that  the  mysterious  events  at  the  home  of 
the  father  of  the  famous  Wesleys,  which  began  with  blood-curdling 
groans  and  terrific  knockings,  until  outsiders  were  invoked  to  lay 
the  ghost,  all  centered  about  some  of  his  seventeen  children,  who 
gobbled,  broke  glass,  and  made  noises  like  money.  This  Bruce  thinks 
centered  in  the  third  girl,  sprightly,  gay,  vivacious,  precocious, 
nocturnal  in  her  habits,  whose  tremblings  when  her  room  was  sud- 
denly entered  by  people  with  pistols  may  only  have  been  suppressed 
laughter.  She  had  a  passion  for  scribbling  and  later  became  a 
poetess.  The  famous  ghost  of  Cock  Lane,  too,  owed  most  of  the 
reality  it  ever  possessed  to  the  daughter  of  a  clerk,  aged  twelve,  who 
24 


354  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

brought  disaster  and  disgrace  to  a  most  worthy  man  by  playing  upon 
the  superstitions  of  the  people  from  an  uncontrollable  hysterical  im- 
pulse. 

Felida  X./  of  Bordeaux,  was  normal  till  thirteen,  and  since  then 
really  educated  Taine  and  Ribot  and  furnished  the  chief  arguments 
against  the  Cousin  school  of  philosophy.  But  for  her,  Janet  says, 
there  would  have  been  no  chair  of  psychology  at  the  College  de 
France.  She  showed  hysterical  symptoms  and  periodically  fell  into  a 
trance,  emerging  with  a  new  personality.  The  second  Felida  was  a 
marked  improvement  over  the  first,  who  was  doleful,  fretful,  and  glum, 
while  after  the  trances  she  became  vivacious.  In  the  second  state  she 
remembered  all  of  both,  but  in  the  normal  she  knew  nothing  of  the 
second  condition.  At  fifteen  she  came  to  Azam,  who  tried  in  vain 
to  check  her  crises.  She  really  cured  herself  in  the  end,  for  the 
second  state  got  commarfd  oyer  the  first  till  the  latter  rarely  appeared 
and  she  became  a  new  woman.  Only  once  when  she  lapsed  into  the 
first  state  was  there  a  loss  of  memory  for  the  occurrences  of  the  now 
long  period.  She  then  ignored  the  dog,  her  household  arrangements, 
social  duties,  etc.,  so  that  when  she  felt  an  attack  coming  on  she 
wrote  letters  and  gave  in  advance  full  instructions  as  to  her  social 
afifairs,  in  order  to  bridge  the  gaping  memory.  Azam  found  her,  in 
1858,  and  in  1887  she  was  married,  a  happy  mother,  and  constantly 
in  the  second  state,  save  for  half  a  dozen  lapses  a  few  hours  at  a 
time  per  year. 

Marcelline  from  the  age  of  thirteen  suffered  from  hysteria  and 
chorea  until  at  last  vomiting  supervened  and  death  seemed  imminent 
from  exhaustion.  When  Janet  hypnotized  her  he  produced  a  somnam- 
bulic state  in  which  she  could  both  eat  and  digest  and  her  weight  in- 
creased, but  she  could  eat  only  when  hypnotized.  After  leaving  the 
hospital,  she  soon  became  as  bad  as  ever,  but  Janet  finally  succeeded 
in  establishing  her  second  personality,  in  which  she  not  only  recovered 
but  passed  an  examination  she  failed  to  do  in  the  normal  state. 

In  the  first  volume  of  the  "  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Physical 
Research"  (1882,  p.  20),  Professor  Barrett  introduces  the  five  Creery 
girls,  between  the  ages  of  ten  and  seventeen,  "  all  thoroughly  healthy 
and  as  free  as  possible  from  morbid  or  hysterical  symptoms  and  in 
manner  perfectly  simple  and  childlike."  The  father  was  a  clergy- 
man "  of  unblemished  character,"  who  had  often  experimented  with 
telepathy  on  his  daughters  and  "  a  young  servant  girl."  These  sisters 
thenceforth  played  an  important  role  in  the  "Proceedings"  of  the 
English  Society  and  were  thought  to  have  remarkable  mind-reading 
powers.  Many  seances  were  held  with  them  by  diverse  savants 
which  in  the  "  Proceedings  "  of  the  society  occupy  a  large  place  dur- 
ing the  next  five  years.  At  the  close  of  the  volume  of  "  Proceedings," 
June,  1888,  appears  a  note  stating  that  the  Creery  girls  had  been  de- 

*  E.  Azam:  Double  Conscience,  ^tat  actuel  de  Felida  X.  Impr.  de  Chaix, 
Paris,  1883. 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  355 

tected  in  collusion,  not  only  when  two  of  the  sisters  were  acting  as 
agent  and  participant,  but  that  an  auditory  and  visual  code  had  been 
used  when  one  was  a  mere  spectator,  that  the  third  sister  had  "  con- 
fessed to  a  certain  amount  of  signaling,"  and  Mr.  Gurney,  while  sus- 
pecting that  the  signals  had  been  used  far  more  than  had  been  discov- 
ered and  had  been  developed  before  the  sessions,  again  regrets  that 
precautions  were  not  more  stringent,  and  rather  tenderly  says  that  the 
girls  probably  "  feared  that  visitors  would  be  disappointed."  Hence- 
forth the  very  name  of  these  girls  seems  to  be  eschewed  from  all  the 
writings  of  this  Society.  It  would  be  very  interesting  to  a  psycholo- 
gist to  know  far  more  than  we  are  told  about  this  exposure  and  con- 
fession, when  it  was  begun  and  whether  the  girls  grew  up  to  be 
"  thoroughly  healthy  and  normal."  We  seem  here  to  have  a  case 
where  girls  in  the  early  teens  developed  and  indulged  the  passion 
for  deception  under  conditions  where  great  men  and  themes  were 
involved  which  would  seem  calculated  to  bring  home  a  sense  of 
seriousness  and  honesty  to  all  those  capable  of  these  sentiments,  but 
the  personal  motives  to  deceive  were  too  strong  to  be  overcome  even 
under  these  conditions.  Fortunately  the  Society  had  the  courage  to 
go  on  its  way  with  other  subjects  and  other  themes.  There  is  no 
evidence  that  their  belief  in  telepathy  was  much  shaken,  nor  their 
sense  of  the  subtlety  of  the  passion  for  deception  was  very  much 
deepened.  Among  the  lessons  to  be  drawn  from  this  case  is  that 
much  moral  responsibility  is  involved  in  using  maidens  at  this  seeth- 
ing and  susceptible  age  to  demonstrate  supernal  powers.  Probably 
few  conditions  involving  stronger  temptation  to  mislead  can  be  con- 
ceived. 

The  Watseka  wonder  was  too  much  for  Hodgson,  the  Sherlock 
Holmes  of  psychic  research.  Lurancy  Vennum,  aged  thirteen  or 
fourteen,  eighty-five  miles  south  of  Chicago,  July,  1877,  sitting  with 
her  mother,  fell  unconscious  and  stayed  so  five  hours.  She  did  so 
again  the  next  day,  but  while  insensible  to  all  about  her  began  to  say 
she  was  in  heaven,  describing  spirits  who  had  died.  Her  pious  par- 
ents thought  her  fits  trances.  *  They  lasted  from  one  to  eight  hours  and 
sometimes  occurred  several  times  a  day.  Physicians  could  not  help 
and  in  1878  she  was  about  to  be  sent  to  an  insane  asylum,  when  an 
unknown  neighbor  appeared,  a  spiritualist  named  Raff.  He  had  a 
daughter  long  dead  who  had  had  about  the  same  symptoms  and  had 
been  a  supernatural  clairvoyant,  who  had  also  been  deemed  insane  but 
whom  Raff  thought  a  sound  victim  of  spirit  infestation.  A  spiritist 
doctor,  Stevens,  was  called,  and  found  the  girl  doubled  up,  looking  like 
a  hag  and  ugly,  calling  her  father  Old  Black  Dick  and  her  mother  Old 
Granny.  She  was  silent,  but  was  interested  when  she  found  Stevens 
was  a  spiritual  doctor.  She  vowed  her  name  was  Katrina  Hogan, 
aged  eighty-six.  and  that  she  had  come  from  Germany  through  the 
air  three  days  before.  Then  quickly  changing,  she  said  she  had  lied, 
and  was  really  a  l>oy,  Willie  Canning,  who  had  died,  and  is  here  be- 
cause he  wants  to  be.     Finally  she  threw  up  her  hands  and  fell  in  a 


356  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

cataleptic  fit.  The  doctor  magnetized  her  and  found  that  she  was  no 
longer  on  earth  but  in  heaven  surrounded  by  better  spirits.  The  doc- 
tor suggested  that  she  could  be  controlled  by  one  who  would  keep 
away  the  evil  ones  and  she  announced  that  she  had  found  one  on 
earth,  Mary  Raff.  This  her  father  welcomed  greatly.  Lurancy  slept 
well  that  night  but  thereafter  was  Mary  Raff,  not  recognizing  father 
or  mother  but  demanding  to  be  taken  to  the  Raff  house,  calling  Mrs. 
Raff  "  Ma "  and  a  married  sister  "  Nervie,"  hugging  and  kissing 
them  and  whispering  allusions  to  past  events.  To  her  parents  this 
seemed  a  new  phase  of  the  insanity,  but  the  Raffs  had  no  doubt  that 
this  was  the  real  incarnation  of  the  girl  they  had  buried  twelve 
years  before.  On  the  way  to  the  Raff  house,  crossing  the  entire  city, 
she  turned  into  the  house  where  the  Raffs  used  to  live  when  she 
died,  and  when  forced  to  go  on  to  their  new  home  identified  many 
objects  and  told  the  Raffs  that  the  angels  would  let  her  stay  some 
time.  She  was  now  entirely  well,  had  forgotten  her  life  as  Lurancy, 
but  remembered  everything  connected  with  Mary's  career.  She  knew 
she  was  masquerading  in  a  borrowed  body  and  described  where  Mary 
was  buried.  She  stood  most  tests  such  as  recognizing  a  hat  that  Mary 
wore  and  a  collar.  She  performed  a  few  clairvoyant  stunts  and  re- 
mained with  the  Raffs  for  more  than  three  months,  enacting  with 
great  fidelity  the  new  role.  But  in  May  she  told  Mrs.  Raff  in  a 
broken  voice  that  Lurancy  was  coming  back.  She  glared  about,  cried, 
"Where  am  I?'  I  was  never  here  before;  want  to  go  home."  Then 
she  became  Mary  Raff  again  for  several  .days,  lapsing  back  into 
herself.  On  the  road  there  were  sharp  interchanges  of  personali- 
ties. Now  she  would  -weep  at  leaving  her  father  and  then  call  him 
Mr.  Raff.  On  returning  home  she  was  healthy  and  normal,  com- 
pletely cured,  the  Raffs  thought,  by  their  daughter.  Dr.  Stevens 
wrote  the  case  up  from  the  spirit  standpoint.  Mr.  Raff  vowed  it 
was  true  and  that  he  was  an  honest  man,  as  he  seems  to  have  been. 
In  this  state  of  things  Hodgson  arrived,  April,  1890.  Lurancy  had 
married  and  gone  to  Kansas.  She  was  now  a  strong,  healthy  woman, 
although  for  a  time  there  were  occasional  returns  of  Mary's  spirit; 
but  this  had  ceased.  She  married  a  skeptic  and  had  not  developed, 
which  her  father  regretted.  Hodgson  concluded  "  the  case  to  be 
unique  among  the  records  of  supernormal  occurrences,"  and  said  he 
"  could  not  find  any  satisfactory  explanation  of  it  except  the  spirit- 
istic." 

N.  Kotik  1  experimented  on  a  girl,  Sophie,  of  fourteen,  in  southern 
Russia,  of  mixed  blood,  delicate  and  of  neurotic  family,  who  with  her 
father  had  given  public  exhibitions  of  thought  transference.  When 
the  author  controlled  and  varied  these  experiments,  the  father  was 
requested  to  stand  five  paces  behind  the  girl,  whose  eyes  and  often 
whose  ears  were  stopped,  while  he  was  allowed  to  make  no  sound  or 


*  Die  Emanation  der  psychophysischen  Energie.     Bergmann,  Wiesbaden,  1908, 
130  p. 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  357 

movement.  He,  nevertheless,  communicated  to  her  words  written 
by  bystanders  and  shown  to  him.  Again,  he  would  write  and  think 
words  which  she  would  repeat,  nearly  always  correctly.  The  same 
occurred  if  the  father  and  daughter  were  in  different  rooms,  each 
holding  a  wire  that  passed  through  a  keyhole.  In  another  series  of 
experiments,  a  schoolgirl  of  eighteen,  Lydia,  answered  questions 
thought  of  but  not  spoken.  Those  questions  were  often  quite  definitely 
answered,  usually  by  spelling  out  the  responses  by  moving  a  pointed 
cardboard  to  letters  before  her  in  a  Hght  so  dim  that  others  had  diffi- 
culty in  distinguishing  them.  Lydia  also  described  postal  cards  that 
only  the  agent  saw,  as  she  also  did  mental  images  which  others 
called  up ;  and  letters  from  the  agent's  friends  were  partly  repro- 
duced or  answered. 

These  observations  suggested  to  Kotik  the  experiments  of  the 
French  physiologist,  Charpentier  (C.  R.  Soc.  de  Biol.,  1904,  12-19. 
Also  Bordier,  Les  Rayons  N.,  1905,  p.  76)  that  active  brains  ema- 
nated dark  rays,  somewhat  akin  to  Blondot's  N.  rays,  although 
specifically  different  from  these  which,  although  dark  themselves, 
caused  a  phosphorescent  screen  on  which  they  fell  to  glow  dimly. 
These  rays  were  not  thought  by  Charpentier  to  be  connected  by 
thought  transference ;  and  most  now  deem  their  effects  upon  the 
screen  due  to  autosuggestion.  Kotik,  however,  concluded  from  fur- 
ther experiments  upon  such  a  screen  as  Charpentier  had,  that  brains 
emit  such  rays  when  in  action,  not  when  at  rest,  that  affect  a  phos- 
phorescent screen ;  but  he  believes  that  we  have  here  the  real  agent  in 
thought  transference,  that  psychophysic  emanations  are  emitted  al- 
ways and  by  all,  and  that  in  cities  and  crowds  the  air  is  literally  and 
physically  saturated  with  them,  and  that  they  modify  the  conscious- 
ness of  all,  although  in  vastly  different  degrees.  Impinging  upon 
very  sensitive  brains  of  others,  they  cause  them  to  reconstruct  similar 
moods  and  even  images.  They  almost  annihilate  the  individuality 
of  sensitive,  mediumistic  percipients  who  are  but  slightly  protected 
from  the  influence  of  other  brains,  influences  from  which  may  pos- 
itively infect  them.  Thus  the  phrase  that  ideas  are  in  the  air  is 
literally  true.  Psychophysic  energy,  we  are  told,  can  be  conducted 
from  the  agent  to  the  ground  by  a  wire,  so  that  a  telepathic  message 
does  not  reach  the  agent.  It  comes  most  abundantly  from  the  un- 
conscious regions  and  flows  over  to  the  extremities,  e.  g.,  the  hands, 
on  which  it  accumulates;  as  also  it  may  pass  to  blank  paper  clinging 
about  it  for  some  time,  and  can  thus  be  interpreted  Ly  a  percipient. 
It  is  hard  for  it  to  penetrate  closed  doors  and  other  obstacles,  and 
other  objects  are  obstructive  in  different  degrees. 

It  need  hardly  be  added  that  any  experiments  like  these  must  be 
regarded  as  utterly  inconclusive,  since  the  writer  has  little  conception 
of  the  many  modes  by  which  such  transferences  as  he  describes  may 
be  conveyed.  His  precautions,  therefore,  seem  utterly  inadequate.  As 
to  his  experiments  with  N-rays,  they  fall  no  less  slKirt  of  the  accuracy 
which  should  mark  the  work  of  science  under  controlled  conditions. 


35^  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

P.  A.  M.  Richard's  thesis  ^  consists  largely  in  the  description  of 
pathological  cases.  He  shows  the  proneness  of  hysterical  women  to 
fly  in  the  face  of  truth.  Theirs,  however,  are  pseudo  lies,  if  they  re- 
sult from  dreams,  delusions,  troubles  of  conscience,  external  sugges- 
tion or  perturbations  of  memory  or  personality.  Hysterical  patients 
can,  however,  truly  lie,  although  their  mendacity  may  be  a  vent  and 
perhaps  a  relief  for  their  malady.  The  vice  is  due,  in  such  cases,  to 
psychic  feebleness,  puerility  of  character,  and  mental  ataxia.  This 
habit  may  have  the  gravest  consequences  for  friends,  and  complaints 
must  be  carefully  analyzed.  Such  patients  cannot  be  held  entirely 
responsible  for  their  falsehoods,  and  their  testimony  in  cowrt  has 
slight  value. 

A.  Delbriick  ^  has  given  us  an  anthology  of  almost  classical  cases 
of  psychopathic  lies;  and  shows  in  cases  where  falsehood  and  delusion 
are  combined  that  complete  responsibility  before  the  law  is  impos- 
sible. Often  the  beginnings  of  this  perversion  are  seen  in  slight 
deviations  on  trifling  things,  and  pass  gradually  to  diametrical  con- 
tradictions concerning  the  most  vital  and  essential  matters.  Many 
swindlers  have  been  partially  sincere,  and  some  of  the  insane,  who 
were  subject  to  the  most  perverse  hallucinations,  often  show  signs 
of  incomplete  credence  in  them.  Where  conviction  is  attained  it  is 
often  not  of  the  calm  stable  kind.  Pseudologia  phantastica  has  many 
literary  representations  to  which  this  author  refers.  In  some  states 
of  consciousness  it  is  possible  to  really  lie,  and  yet  to  do  so  in  per- 
fect good  faith.  Whenever  the  power  of  reproduction  weakens  and 
fancy  increases  in  strength,  we  have  this  type  of  degeneration. 
Thieves  are  perhaps  the  most  artistic  and  dexterous  liars.  Those 
who  commit  violent  crimes  lie  in  a  clumsy  way.  Very  often  experts 
seem  to  lose  all  sense  that  they  are  lying,  even  in  the  very  act  of 
doing  so,  for  it  has  become  complete  second  nature.  It  is  very  often 
difficult  to  distinguish  between  insanity  and  simulation.  In  the  best 
of  Sully's  works — that  on  illusion — he  shows  how  akin  it  is  to  error, 
and  how  commonly  we  are  deceived  by  our  own  experience.  Yet 
there  are  some  who  persist  in  lies  despite  the  fact  that  at  the  same 
instant  they  have  a  keen  sense  of  their  falsity.  In  mania  there  is 
often  a  strange  mixture  of  truth  and  poetry  which  breaks  up  on 
slight  examination.  Kraepelin  has  cited  many  cases  of  illusions  of 
memory  which  were  interpreted  as  falsehoods,  and  some  of  which 
vanished  under  slight  criticism.  They  sometimes  coexist  with  clear 
judgment.     They  can  be  produced  by  retroactive  hallucinations. 

Gobelbecker  (Zeits.  f.  exper.  Padagogik,  5.  Bd.,  S.  50)  gives  an 
interesting  case  of  the  harmless  play  of  childish  fancy,  which  he 
compares  to  blowing  soap  bubbles  and  with  abnormal  self-deception 

*  Le  Mensonge  chez  la  femme  hysterique.  (These  med.)  Y.  Cadoret.  Bor- 
deaux, 1902,  66  p. 

'  Die  pathologische  Liige  und  die  psychisch  abnormen  Schwindler.  Enke, 
StuUgart,  1 89 1,  131  p. 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  359 

or  pathological  imagination ;  and  concludes  that  the  factor  of  religion 
is  the  chief  one  for  the  cultivation  of  the  phantasy.^ 

A.  Pick  2  describes  two  interesting  cases  of  pathological  dreamery 
with  hysterical  symptoms.  First,  a  girl  of  eighteen  suffering  with 
delusions  of  greatness,  who  thought  herself  an  empress,  etc.  Some- 
times the  reality  of  her  illusions  seemed  to  be  open  to  question ;  but 
usually  they  persisted  and  were  strongly  developed  in  her  letters. 
The  other  case  is  that  of  a  twenty-year-old  servant  girl,  who  had  suf- 
fered from  a  sexual  attempt  at  the  age  of  fourteen.  She  was  found 
tied  and  told  a  story  in  detail,  which  was  later  doubted.  This  patient 
wrote  love  letters  and  sent  them  to  herself.  In  one  she  described  her- 
self as  located  in  the  forest,  and  when  she  received  the  letter,  went 
there  at  once,  ran  about  weeping  as  if  expecting  to  see  her  lover,  and 
coming  home  complained  to  her  mistress-  that  he  had  assaulted  her. 
She  thought  she  deserved  punishment ;  and  evenings  on  going  to  bed 
saw  herself  tied  with  chains  and  imprisoned. 

The  following  cases  illustrate  a  very  different  and,  on  the 
whole,  less  abnormal  class  of  cases : 

Two  German  immigrants  in  New  York  brought  up  their  daughter, 
born  here,  on  a  diet  of  Hteral  truth,  and  tabooed  fiction,  poetry,  and 
imagination  as  lies.  She  was  bright,  at  twelve  had  never  read  a  fairy 
tale  or  a  story  book,  but  was  constitutionally  dreamy  and  ardent- 
souled,  with  a  great  passion  and  talent  for  music.  Her  mother  once 
told  her  she  might  perhaps  sometime  play  to  the  President.  Soon 
after,  at  the  dedication  of  Grant's  tomb,  she  saw  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
McKinley,  and  one  day  rushed  in  breathlessly,  saying  that  they 
had  visited  her  school,  heard  her  play,  might  adopt  her,  would  give 
papa  a  place  in  Washington,  etc. ;  but  Mrs.  McKinley  was  out  of 
funds  and  her  husband  was  in  Washington.  Accordingly,  Gertrude's 
father  drew  a  hundred  dollars  from  his  fortune  of  fourteen  hundred 
in  the  bank  and  sent  it  by  his  daughter,  who  brought  back  costly  flow- 
ers. Upon  more  excuses,  more  money  was  loaned,  and  more  presents 
were  sent  to  Gertrude's  parents,  a  canary,  a  puppy,  a  diamond  ring. 
Gertrude  conversed  intelligently  on  political  topics  and  her  father 
gave  up  his  position  as  he  was  about  to  accept  a  five-thousand-dollar 
job  in  Washington.  Then  came  the  crash.  Gertrude  had  never  met 
the  President  nor  his  wife,  but  had  made  lavish  presents  and  bought 
many   articles  which   she   had  stored   with  a   neighbor,  and  to  her 

'  Sec  P.  F^lix-Thomas:  Le  Mensonge.  Revue  Pcklagogique,  IQ07,  vol.  50, 
pp.  509-5  iQ.  Also  Die  pathologischc  Lilge,  by  H.  PijKT.  Z<'its.  f.  Pad.,  Psy., 
Path.,  u.  Hygiene,  1006,  vol.  8,  pp.  1-15.  From  the  pn-rcding  article  and  also 
in  the  following  many  rases  are  cited  in  this  text.  Einige  intenss;inlc  Kin<Urlugen, 
von  f).  Lipmann,  ibui.,  pp.  85-88. 

'  UelxT  pathologist  he  Traumerci  und  ihre  Be7.iehung«'n  zur  Hysterie.  Jahrb. 
f.  Psychiatric  u.  Neurologic,  1895-96,  vol.  14,  pp.  280-301. 


360  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

parents'  especial  horror  had  laid  in  a  large  stock  of  fairy  tales  and 
other  fiction.  This  points  a  moral  against  the  pedagogic  theory  that 
would  starve  the  imagination.^ 

A  bright  girl  of  thirteen  was  brought  to  a  Sunday-school  class,  at 
the  close  of  which  she  declared  she  was  unable  to  walk,  and  so  a  lady 
took  her  in  her  carriage  to  her  house.  That  evening  the  clergyman 
heard  a  moan  and  found  this  girl  on  his  piazza,  tied  hand  and  foot, 
with  a  rude  splint  made  of  shingles  on  her  arm.  She  said  she  had 
been  beaten  and  left  on  the  street  near  by  but  managed  to  crawl  to 
the  piazza.  He  and  his  wife  sat  up  all  night  with  her  fixing  the 
splint  and  in  the  morning  a  lady  neighbor  took  her  to  a  house  she 
falsely  designated  as  her  home,  but  as  the  lady  rang  the  bell  to  have 
her  carried  in  she  slipped  out  of  the  opposite  door  of  the  carriage 
and  ran.  Her  mother,  who  was  afterwards  found,  declared  that  the 
girl  loved  such  adventures. 

A  Boston  schoolgirl  of  thirteen,  Mary  G.,  fell  sick  of  diphtheria 
but  was  well  on  the  road  toward  convalescence  when  a  girl  classmate 
brought  the  news  to  the  teacher  in  school  one  morning  that  she  had 
suddenly  died,  telling  of  the  death  with  great  detail,  and  in  due  time 
reporting  the  funeral.  Many  wept  and  at  the  suggestion  of  the 
teacher  a  collection  of  a  hundred  and  sixty-three  pennies  was  made  by 
the  children  for  flowers.  These  the  teacher  sent  to  the  mother  with 
a  note  of  condolence  and  went  to  express  her  grief.  The  mother 
was  dismayed  at  the  news  and  on  telephoning  to  the  hospital  it  was 
found  that  Mary  was  well  enough  to  go  home  that  day. 

A  girl  of  eight  came  to  school  one  morning  in  the  fall  with  a  full 
account  of  a  summer's  visit  to  Europe,  during  which  she  had  ridden 
a  horse,  had  a  railroad  accident,  experienced  a  severe  storm  at  sea, 
and  had  many  other  adventures,  although  in  fact  she  had  never  left 
home. 

F.  Guillermet  ^  reports  a  very  imaginative  girl  of  twelve  years  of 
age.  On  being  reprimanded  for  bad  work  in  school  she  excused 
herself  by  saying  that  a  little  sister  had  just  been  born  at  home  and 
that  had  put  the  house  in  confusion.  This  child  was  the  subject  of 
conversation  between  teacher  and  pupil  for  several  months,  and 
survived  various  infantile  maladies.  Finally  it  died  and  the  pupil 
was  excused  to  attend  the  funeral.  Upon  calling  to  express  sympathy 
for  the  bereaved  mother,  what  was  the  teacher's  astonishment  to 
learn  that  there  had  never  been  either  infant,  disease,  or  death. 
This  child  ^  eight  years  later  became  a  remarkable  spiritual  medium. 

J.  Demoor  and  Daniel  ^  report  another  girl  of  twelve  who  reported 
her  mother  sick  at  home  and  gave  many  details.     She  grew  steadily 

*  This  story  is  told  more  in  detail  in  the  preface  of  C.  A.  Ragozin's  Siegfried 
and  Beowulf.    Putnam's,  N.  Y.,  1898,  332  p. 

^  Un  cas  demensonge  infantile.     Archives  de  Psychologic,  1902—3,  vol.  2,  p.  377. 

'  Les  Enfants  anormaux  k  Bruxelles.  Annee  Psychologique,  1900,  vol.  7,  pp. 
29^313- 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  3^1 

worse  and  died.  After  a  few  days  the  child  returned  to  school  weep- 
ing and  clad  in  black.  Some  months  later  the  father  married  again 
and  the  child  repeated  the  details  of  the  wedding  as  she  had  done  of 
the  funeral  of  her  mother.  Sometime  afterwards  it  was  learned  that 
the  mother  of  this  child  was  living  with  her  father  and  had  never 
been  ill. 

T.  Jonckheere  *  quotes  a  case  of  a  backward  girl,  also  twelve,  who 
was  thought  to  have  some  symptoms  of  rickets  and  was  examined  in 
the  presence  of  an  instructor.  To  this  end  she  only  had  to  unbutton 
her  dress  a  little  behind  that  the  spinal  column  might  be  felt.  On 
returning  to  the  class  she  stated  that  the  doctor  had  entirely  un- 
dressed her.  This  gave  rise  to  public  accusation  and  calumny  for  the 
physician.  Children's  lies  have  often,  thus,  a  legal  significance,  and 
this  is  a  question  that  should  bear  upoii  the  age  and  circumstances 
under  which  their  testimony  should  be  admitted  in  court.  The  very 
sensations  of  backward  children  are  often  defective;  still  more  so 
their  attention,  associations,  and  judgments. 

The  literature  of  imaginary  companions  is  now  represented  by 
quite  a  Hst  of  reports.  Chairs  are  often  set  for  these  creations  of 
fancy  at  the  table.  They  have  many  adventures.  There  are  many 
epidemics  of  hair-clipping,  and  the  existence  of  sexual  perverts  who 
have  this  mania  is  undoubted;  nevertheless  many  of  these  cases  are 
entirely  fictitious,  one  estimate  being  that  about  three  out  of  ten  are 
true.  In  other  cases  girls  have  cut  off  their  own  hair  to  make  the 
sensation  and  to  be  the  centers  of  interest,  and  in  other  cases  have 
honestly  thought  their  hair  longer  or  more  abundant  than  it  was 
and  so  have  imagined  an  adventure. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  all  virtue  is  truth  and  all  error  and  sins 
are  lies.  FidfilityLtQLhximan  nature  and  its  real  needs  is  the  highest 
truth.  Of  course  teachers  and  parents  can  do  very  much  to  develop 
truthfulness,  which  at  first  is  loyalty  to  persons.  Without  affecting 
a  nimbus  of  infallibility  they  can  at  least  rigorously  keep  their 
promises  and  execute  their  threats  and  avoid  casuistry  and  over- 
subtlety,  and  taboo  the  current  social  lies  of  conventionality,  fads 
and  shams,  and  set  examples  of  real  and  constant  love  of  truth.  It 
must,  however,  be  reluctantly  admitted  that  the  sciences  of  nature 
are  a  little  hard  on  the  imagination  of  young  children,  who  find  in 
the  humanities,  literature,  poetry,  and  romance,  much  more  that  is 
congenial  to  their  own  nature,  which  has  thus  more  appetizing 
pabulum. 

I  have  culled  these  cases,  which  could  be  indefinitely  multi- 
plied, because  they  are  representative,  and  illustrate  so  many 
points   which    psychology   should    investigate   on    account   of 

•  Le  Mensongc  chez  Ics  Arri6r6s.  Archives  dc  Psychologic,  1902-3,  \-ol.  2,  pp. 
263-66. 


362  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

their  great  scientific  and  practical  importance.  We  know 
little  of  the  female  soul  and  are  just  beginning  to  realize  our 
ignorance.  These  often  thwarted  and  aborted  lives  show,  I 
think,  a  propensity  to  attract  attention  and  to  be  of  importance, 
which  is  abnormal  only  in  its  degree  and  is  morbidly  and  pre- 
cociously developed.  Some  of  these  cases  represent  the  revolt 
of  natures  handicapped  by  heredity  and  cramped  in  a  narrow 
sphere,  repressed  more  even  than  has  been  the  lot  of  the 
average  woman  during  all  the  historic  period.  Modes  of 
asserting  themselves  like  the  above  are,  of  course,  very 
pathetic.  Psycho-analytic  methods  which  consist  of  reactions 
to  test  words  by  naming  others  first  suggested  by  them,  show 
that  where  the  response  is  truthful  and  immediate,  the  time 
required  by  the  mind  to  pass  from  a  suggested  idea  to  the  one 
nearest  related  to  it  is  always  less  and  often  much  less  than 
where  the  nearest  association  is  passed  over  and  another  one 
that  arises  later  selected  to  avoid  betrayal.  Thus  criminals 
and  all  those  with  painful  experiences  in  their  lives  which 
they  desire  to  conceal  can,  as  is  well  known,  often  be  detected 
by  the  long  pause  between  the  stimulus-word  and  the  reaction 
to  it.  Lying  involves  hesitation,  and  this  sheds  light  upon 
the  very  nature  of  consciousness  as  essentially  remedial  and 
therapeutic.  Some  of  the  above  cases  are  intoxicated  with 
the  lust  to  broaden  their  experience,  be  and  do  things  that  they 
have  heard  others  were  or  did,  or  to  make  possibilities  actual. 
Moreover,  there  is  a  strange  tingling  inebriation  with  the 
sense  of  being  alive,  that  flagrant  falsehood  better  than  any- 
thing else  can  excite  in  some  natures.  Precisely  what  they 
are  not,  they  assume;  what  they  cannot  achieve,  they  do; 
wishes  reel  and  riot  toward  realization.  They  become  drunk 
and  debauched  with  lies  as  many  have  recourse  to  strong 
drink  to  escape  the  stress  and  strain  of  real  life  when  it  is 
hard,  poor  and  mean,  for  this  is  the  chief  motive  that  drives 
many  to  drink.  Without  entering  here  upon  this  which  is 
one  of  the  most  fascinating  themes  in  contemporary  psychol- 
ogy, it  must  suffice  to  say  that  it  is  this  view  point  which  re- 
veals the  best  of  all  cures  and  preventives  of  lying,  viz.,  to 
enlarge  and  enrich  actual  life,  to  fill  out  experiences,  so  as  to 
narrow  the  chasm  between  fact  and  fiction.  The  more 
physical  development  which  tends  to  establish  a  close  bond 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  363 

between  knowing  and  doing-,  the  more  varied  and  interesting 
and  absorbing  the  daily  hfe,  the  more  the  best  and  the  strong- 
est feehngs  are  stirred  and  given  vent ;  the  more  the  youthful 
soul  palpitates  with  the  joy  of  existence  and  accomplishment, 
the  more  zestful  is  the  knowledge  acquired  and  the  less  is  the 
temptation  to  every  form  of  lying.  Conversely,  where  life  is 
made  dull  and  straitened  by  the  environment  or  tense  by 
disease  or  defect,  so  that  the  soul  is  habitually  hungry,  there 
we  have  temptation  to  many  ways  of  escape,  from  runaways 
to  falsehood.  As  Jove  was  said  to  have  recourse  to  his 
thunder  only  when  he  was  wrong,  so  error  is  more  prone  to  be 
fanatical  than  is  truth.  Without  knowing  it  these  hysterical 
girls  feel  disinherited  and  robbed  of  their  birthright.  Their 
bourgeoning  woman's  instinct  to  be  the  center  of  interest  and 
admiration  bursts  all  bonds,  and  they  speak  and  even  act  out 
what  with  others  would  be  only  secret  reverie.  Thus  they  can 
not  only  be  appreciated  but  marveled  at,  can  almost  become 
priestesses,  pythonesses,  maenads,  and  set  their  mates,  neigh- 
bors, or  even  great  savants  agog  and  agape  while  they  have 
their  fling  at  life,  reckless  of  consequences.  Thus  they  can 
be  of  consequence,  respected,  observed,  envied,  perhaps  even 
studied.  So  they  defy  their  fate  and  wreak  their  little  souls 
upon  expression  with  abandon  and  have  their  supreme  satis- 
faction for  a  day,  impelled  to  do  so  by  blind  instinct  which 
their  intellect  is  too  undeveloped  to  restrain.  And  all  this 
because  their  actual  life  is  so  dull  and  empty. 

Kemsies,  Burden,  and  Perez  conclude  that  all  children  He  oc- 
casionally and  that  many  have  periods  of  doing  so.  Jean  Paul  Rich- 
ter  says  that  up  to  five  few  children  can  have  any  sense  of  truth  or 
falsehood.  Most  pedagogues,  doctors,  and  jurists  who  have  lately 
written  so  much  on  the  subject  have  a  very  poor  opinion  of  chil- 
dren's truthfulness  and  reliability  in  matters  of  importance  where 
they  become  centers  of  interest,  and  hold  that  their  testimony  in 
court  should  always  be  accepted  with  caution,  althoui^h.  let  us  hope, 
that  most  try  to  be  trustworthy.  Imaginative  children  easily  deceive 
themselves.  When  they  feign  pain  they  often  really  feel  it,  illusory 
though  it  is.  One  very  early  symptom  of  hysteria  in  girls  is  the  dis- 
position to  fabricate.  There  is  sometimes  a  strange  exhilaration  and 
even  intoxication  for  the  most  violent  ruptures  with  objective  truth 
and  a  passion  both  to  simulate  and  to  dissimulate. 

Dcmoor  strongly  advocates  the  exclusion  of  constitutional  liars 
from  school  as  dangerous  sources  of  infection,  but  we  should  not 


364  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

forget  that  it  is  the  voracious  appetite  for  knowledge  that  often  makes 
children  credulous.  If  the  curriculum  is  formal,  contentless,  and  un- 
interesting, this  tendency  to  break  out  and  escape  if  they  cannot  find 
objects  of  interest  is  strong.  The  mental  constitution  of  children 
is  full  of  slumbering  latent  tendencies  to  most  of  the  experiences  of 
the  race  that  have  been  so  rich  and  manifold,  and  its  push-up  toward 
an  out-crop  in  the  fecund  fancy  of  youth  is  strong.  Some  so-called 
lies  are  doubtless  projections  of  ancestral  experience  into  the  child's 
consciousness.  Children  love  and  doubtless  prefer  truth  but  they 
want  it  in  great  abundance  and  it  must  palpitate  with  reality  and 
emotion;  and  if  their  life  is  poor  and  their  environment  unfurnished, 
they  supply  themselves  with  an  objective  world  that  meets  the  crav- 
ings of  their  soul  even  if  they  have  to  improvise  it.  Thus  the  crav- 
ing for  excitement  is  something  that  needs  to  be  met  in  the  interests 
of  truth. 

Very  different  and  far  more  common  are  errors  char- 
acteristic of  childhood  which  very  often  shade  over  by  im- 
perceptible gradations  into  fabrications.  The  human  organ- 
ism is  so  made  that  man  is  prone  to  deception.  The  senses 
are  fruitful  of  illusions  and  delusions,  which  one  of  the 
most  interesting  chapters  in  psychology  explains.  Straight 
lines  seemed  curved,  and  vice  versa.  The  color  sense  and  that 
of  motion  are  easily  deceived.  Conjurors  have  stated  that 
they  can  almost  make  any  man  believe  he  perceives  anything.^ 
Of  165  children  78  described  a  ball  going  upward  and  dis- 
appearing in  the  air  when  it  was  not  thrown  at  all.  Of  381 
children  76  saw  a  toy  carnel  move  when  a  crank  which  they 
thought  drew  it  was  turned,  although  in  fact  it  was  motion- 
less. Distilled  water  seems  perfumed  by  suggestion.  The 
prestidigitator's  patter,  which  is  often  his  real  art,  consists  in 
misdirecting  attention,  while  the  essential  thing  is  done  in  its 
indirect  field.  The  art  consists  in  guiding  perception  to  what 
is  not  done.  In  fraudulent  spirit  manifestations,  dozens  of 
people  recognize  the  same  mask  in  a  dim  light  as  the  face  of 
their  dead  relatives.  Mediums  are  seen  to  rise  in  the  air, 
things  vanish  in  the  fourth  dimension  of  space.  Error,  like 
truth,  flourishes  in  crowds  by  contagion.  Hence  tricks  are 
easy  before  large  audiences.     As  the  strength  of  a  chain  is  its 

*  See  N.  Triplett:  The  Psychology  of  Conjuring  Deceptions.  Amer.  Jour,  of 
Psy.,  July,  1900,  vol.  ii,  pp.  439-510.  Also  Joseph  Jastrow:  Fact  and  Fable  in 
Psychology.     Houghton,  MifiUn,  Bost.  and  N.  Y.,  1900,  p.  106  et  seq. 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  3^5 

weakest  link,  so  the  critical  power  of  a  crowd  is  its  weakest 
individual.  The  story  of  psychic  delusions,  epidemics,  and 
fads  seems  to  show  that  victims  love  to  believe  and  hate  to  be 
undeceived  by  coming  to  the  truth. 

An  unique  series  of  studies  on  children's  capacity  to  observe  and 
report  truthfully  has  lately  been  made  which  is  of  interest  and  im- 
portance to  jurists  and  to  psychologists.  Most  of  these  have  been 
published  in  the  German  serial  entitled  "  Beitrage  zur  Psychologie  der 
Aussage."  One  of  the  first  of  these,  however,  was  by  M.  Buisson  ^ 
who  collected  reports  on  data  from  no  schoolboys  and  40  girls,  and 
classifies  their  returns  as  follows.  First,  he  foimd  half  a  dozen  strictly 
pathological  cases.  In  a  second  group  fell  another  half  dozen  cases 
due  to  overstrict  teachers  and  brutal  parents,  where  lies  were  the 
product  of  feai.  In  a  third  group  of  some  25,  lying  was  a  product  of 
a  vjcious  environment,  chiefly  at  home.  In  some  cases  children  were 
taught  to  lie  and  steal,  or  perhaps  given  too  much  liberty  and  too  great 
responsibility.  The  fourth  group  comprises  lies  of  interest,  beginning 
with  exculpation.  To  have  once  escaped  merited  punishment  by  a  lie 
often  marks  a  sad  epoch  for  a  child.  Under  lies  of  interest,  which  be- 
long here,  fall  perhaps  especially  those  which  are  inseparable  from 
theft.  The  fifth  group  of  lies  are  motivated  by  imagination,  ^vanity, 
de$ire  of  display.  At  first,  the  child  may  a  quarter  believe  his  own 
fable.  Sootfhe  cannot  distinguish  between  what  is  real  and  what  is 
fancied.  It  is  an  jesthetic  necessity  to  recount  what  is  beautiful  and 
to  embellish  facts.  One  constructive  liar  almost  reedited  the  stories 
of  the  Odyssey. 

In  the  above  groups  there  seem  two  larger  classes :  first,  lies  that 
begin  in  an  hallucination  and  develop  automatically  as  the  imagina- 
tion warms,  perhaps  to  improvisation  or  to  consummate  cleverness, 
or  courage  that  becomes  foolhardy.  In  the  other  class  fall  lies  of 
Cfinceit,  affected  superiority,  and  here  is  the  chief  danger  of  moral 
perversion.  The  above  classes  do  not  include  lies  without  motive 
or  those  due  to  pure  malevolence. 

M.  Lobsien  ^  tested  469  boys  and  girls  from  nine  to  fourteen  as  fol- 
lows: a.  A  chart  containing  twelve  clearly  but  simply  drawn  familiar 
objects  was  shown  for  five  seconds,  when  the  children  must  immedi- 
ately write  down  how  many  things  they  saw  and  also  what.  b.  Water 
was  shown  and  the  experimenter  pretended  to  put  in  a  drop  of  a 
named,  and  in  another  experiment  an  unnamed,  substance  that  ap- 
pealed to  taste.  Each  child  tasted,  with  hygienic  precautions,  and 
in  the  first  case  was  asked  to  state  whether  the  substance  was  de- 

'  Rapport  oral  sur  Ics  mensonges  d'enfants.  Bull,  de  la  Soc.  Libre  pour  I'Etudc 
Psy.  dc  I'Enfant,  IQ02,  pp.  130-137. 

*  Aussage  und  Wirklichkcit  bei  Schulkindem.  Beitrage  zur  Psy.  dcr  .\ussagc, 
1903,  vol.  I,  Heft  2,  pp.  26-89. 


366  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

tected,  and  in  the  second  what  it  was.  This  was  repeated  also  in  two- 
fold form  for  smell,  c.  Four  groups  of  ten  words  each,  designed  to 
test  the  type  of  memory,  were  read,  to  be  immediately  written  after- 
wards, d.  A  colored  picture  was  shown  for  two  minutes,  and  twelve 
questions  asked  about  it.  e.  A  theatrical  representation  of  simplified 
plays  was  seen,  to  be  described.  In  comparing  the  children's  state- 
ments with  the  facts,  the  age  of  twelve  was  found  best  for  test  a. 
Nearly  half  stated  that  they  had  seen  more  than  the  twelve  things 
shown.  To  this  error  girls  and  younger  boys  were  most  prone.  From 
two  thirds  to  three  fourths  of  the  objects  seen  were  named,  and  when 
the  experiment  was  repeated  twenty-four  and  then  again  forty-eight 
hours  afterwards, more  objects  were  named, but  the  order  was  greatly 
changed.  In  b  all  the  children  at  the  age  of  eleven  and  twelve,  mostly 
boys,  tasted  and  smelled  a  purely  imaginary  substance,  but  at  the  age 
of  fifteen  or  sixteen  only  a  little  over  one  third  did  so.  When  the 
substance  was  not  named  the  imagination  in  the  false  cases  fook 
a  very  wide  range.  In  c  many  things  not  in  the  picture  were  imag- 
ined. The  boys'  description  of  the  boy  who  lay  fishing  on  a  bank 
in  the  picture  was  of  a  hale,  rough,  stalky  fellow,  but  the  girls  called 
him  pretty,  with  a  pleasant  face,  fine,  with  white  shoes  and  satin 
jacket,  light-blue  eyes,  and  in  general  made  him  too  delicate  and 
refined.  Boys  excel  girls  throughout,  even  in  color.  Girls  were  more 
prone  to  underestimate  numbers  and  distance  in  perspective,  and 
boys  to  overestimate  them.  No  fish  were  in  sight,  but  in  answer  to 
the  vcxier  question,  how  many  fish  he  had  caught,  the  boys  in  all 
say  142,  and  the  girls  73,  both  often  naming  a  number.  Throughout 
the  striking  result  is  the  number  of  omissions  and  falsifications.  By 
analysis  it  appeared  that  the  acoustic-optic  and  the  type  combining 
these  with  the  motor  are  more  common  than  the  pure  types  or  than 
any  other  combination,  and  that  these  types  give  truest  and  fullest 
returns.  The  worst  optical  testimony  was  by  those  essentially  ear- 
minded  and  vice  versa.  The  highest  intelligence  goes  with  the  motor 
type,  and  the  worst  pupils  are  in  the  acoustic  group.  One  surprising 
result  is  that  when  the  questions  were  repeated  twenty-four  and 
forty-eight  hours  afterwards  without  showing  the  picture  again, 
better  results  appeared,  more  things  were  named,  and  the  descriptions 
were  better  than  when  the  record  was  made  immediately  after  seeing, 
so  that  freshness  of  impression  and  truth  were  in  a  sense  opposed. 
In  a  subsequent  study  ^  Lobsien  showed  that  for  some  if  not  most  of 
these  tests,  the  number  of  reproductions  increased  for  successive 
days,  at  least  seven.  This  result  surprised  him  and  he  repeated  ex- 
periments, all  of  which  confirmed  it.  He  ascribes  the  improvement 
of  statement  to  will,  wish,  or  to  suggestion,  etc.  He  concludes  that 
the  optical  type  does  not  make  the  best  witness  even  to  what  is  seen. 
The  theatrical  experiments  gave  few  new  results. 

*  Ueber  das  Gedachtnis  fiir  bildlich  dargestellte  Dinge  in  seiner  Abhangigkeit 
von  der  Zwischenzeit.     Beitrage  z.  Psy.  d.  Aussage,  1904,  vol.  2,  Heft  2,  pp.  17-30. 


CHILDREN'S    LIES  367 

William  Stern  '  showed  a  highly  colored  picture  of  a  peasant  fam- 
ily at  dinner  to  school  children  of  from  seven  to  eighteen  years  indi- 
vidually for  one  minute,  telling  them  to  observe  carefully  every  detail. 
This  was  done  in  a  room  apart  from  the  school  and  each  child  was 
asked  to  tell  all  it  could  recall.  This  was  stenographically  noted. 
When  all  that  could  be  spontaneously  reproduced  in  this  way  had  been 
stated,  a  second  stage  of  the  experiment  consisted  in  asking  ques- 
tions, exhorting  each  to  answer  carefully  and  with  fidelity.  The 
pupil  was  then  dismissed,  but  charged  not  to  speak  of  the  experiment 
to  his  mates,  and  some  days  later  was  asked  to  repeat  his  narrative, 
and  questions  were  also  asked  again,  although  the  picture  was  not 
shown.  The  result  showed  that  about  one  fourth  of  all  the  declara- 
tions were  false.  Boys  excelled  girls  in  the  number  of  right  items 
about  ten  per  cent.  At  the  age  of  seven,  one  in  three,  and  at  fourteen, 
one  in  five,  statements  were  false.  In  the  number  of  items  boys  im- 
prove fastest  from  seven  to  ten,  while  girls  make  little  advance,  but 
improve  very  rapidly  from  ten  to  fourteen,  and  at  the  latter  age  slightly 
excel  boys.  In  fidelity  of  reproduction  boys  are  best  till  twelve,  when 
they  are  surpassed  by  girls.  In  the  spontaneous  statements  there  were 
but  six  per  cent  of  errors.  The  number  of  correct  spontaneous  items 
was  at  thirteen  double  that  at  seven,  and  trebled  it  at  eighteen,  but  the 
degree  of  correctness  changed  little  with  age.  Answers  to  questions 
were  nearly  one  third  false.  In  131  instances  out  of  2.764  questions  to 
forty-six  pupils,  objects  were  put  into  the  picture  that  were  not  there. 
The  constrained  depositions  were  in  general  five  and  a  half  times  as 
erroneous  as  when  the  statements  were  free.  The  false  answers  were 
due  to  erroneous  association  suggested  by  the  question,  which  prompts 
to  fill  a  gap,  and  the  answer  is  often  a  product  not  of  conviction  but 
of  anxiety.  Alternative  questions  with  "  either  or  "  prompt  random 
replies.  The  falsifications  are  sometimes  gross.  In  spontaneity  value, 
persons  lead  and  things  follow.  Optical  space  is  more  reliable  than 
color  and  the  registration  of  objectivity  is  in  general  not  pure,  but  a 
product  of  selection  by  attention  and  interest ;  still,  the  latter  best 
secures  correctness.  In  nearly  all  respects  boys  excel  girls,  and  the 
improvement  due  to  age  is  in  just  those  matters  where  boys  excel, 
so  that  the  result  is  as  if  girls  were  younger.  In  the  spontaneous 
utterances  the  per  cent  of  error  remained  pretty  constant,  whatever 
the  number  of  items.  For  a  few  years  before  puberty  improvement 
was  very  slight,  but  when  it  dawned  became  rapid  for  several  years. 
Taking  all  the  tests  together  the  average  improvemenl  from  seven  to 
eighteen  is  only  some  fifty  per  cent,  showing  that  this  function  is  not 
basal  as  an  index  of  mental  development.  Spontaneity  versus  recep- 
tivity shows  a  greater  increment  and  is  a  better  index,  for  with  it  goes 
a  stronger  resistance  to  fal.se  suggestion.  .Substance,  action,  (juality- 
relation  are  three  stadia  of  development  which  are  also  probably  seen 

'  Die  Aus.s;iK«-  als  K^'istiK*"  I^istung  und  als  Verh6rsprxxlukt.  Brilriigc  z.  I*sy. 
der  Aussagc,  1904,  vol.  i,  Heft  3,  p.  147. 


368  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

in  speech.  Practical  anthropocentric  interests  lead.  Girls  are  even 
more  inferior  in  spontaneity  than  in  receptivity  and  every  difficulty 
increases  their  inferiority,  boys  at  fourteen,  just  entering  puberty, 
about  equaling  girls  of  the  same  age,  who  are  in  the  height  of  this  fer- 
ment. Girls  emphasize  p^sonal  and  boys  the  material  interests,  their 
reliability  even  in  color  being  somewhat  markedly  behind  that  of  boys.^ 

Stern  in  his  "  Erinnerung,  Aussage  und  Liige  in  der  ersten 
Kindheit,"  I  and  II,  gives  a  number  of  interesting  illustrations  and 
distinctions  between  real  and  apparent  lies,  with  a  final  chapter  on 
cure  and  prevention,  laying  chief  stress  on  prophylaxis.  Preventive 
measures  can  be  overdone.  Severe  discipline  is  one  of  the  chief  pro- 
vocatives of  lying,  so  that  self-control  and  harmonious  relations  with 
its  environment  must  be  considered  one  of  the  chief  preventives. 

A.  Moll  2  passes  judgment  upon  the  experiments  of  the  Aussage 
psychology  that  deal  with  errors  in  memory  and  perception,  etc. 
Stern  and  Lipmann  admit  the  need  of  control  to  be  sure  that  the 
attention  is  called  to  the  object  and  errors  if  improvement  is  sought. 
Moll  thinks,  however,  the  results  of  this  kind  of  work  are  very  slight, 
that  the  suspicion,  too,  as  cast  upon  children's  reliability  in  court  is 
excessive.  Opposite  results  as  to  the  liability  of  the  two  sexes  are 
obtained  by  different  investigators.  The  controlled  conditions  of  the 
experiment  have  not  rendered  all  that  is  expected  of  them.  The 
value  of  experiment  for  legal  practice  must  not  be  overestimated  or 
their  real  value  will  be  neglected.  Judges  should  know  experimental 
psychology,  but  practical  is  better. 

R.  Oppenheim,^  following  Stern  and  Wreschner,  showed  thirty 
girls  from  ten  to  twelve,  three  well-known  Walther  colored  pictures 
and  then  after  one  minute  had  them  describe  them  spontaneously,  and 
then  afterwards  look  at  them  as  long  as  they  wished  to  see  where  they 
had  made  mistakes.  When  they  had  finished  they  were  asked  50  ques- 
tions on  each  picture.  Forty-nine  out  of  the  90  tests  were  correct, 
but  the  questions  brought  a  far  larger  proportion  of  error.  Many 
of  the  latter  were  suggestive  and  usually  yielded  only  75  per  cent  true 
answers.  To  test  whether  this  process  was  educable  it  was  repeated 
with  due  separations  after  an  interval.  Each  repetition  showed 
marked  improvement,  from  which  the  author  infers  that  memory  needs 
training  and  can  be  improved.  Some  of  the  questions  required 
estimates  of  time  and  the  result  showed  that  small  intervals  were 
very  greatly  magnified.  The  estimates  of  space  based  upon  a  ques- 
tion as  to  the  size  of  the  picture  also  were  very  far  from  the  truth. 
In  these  tests  children  of  the  higher  schools  showed  themselves  dis- 

•  See  abstract  of  Stem's  work  in  lectures  at  Clark  University.  Amer.  Jour. 
of  Psy.,  April,  1910,  vol.  21,  pp.  270-282. 

*  Bedeutung  d.  mod.  Forschungen  iiber  d.  Aussagepsychologie.  Zeits.  f.  pad. 
Psy.,  Path.  u.  Hygiene,  vol.  9,  pp.  417-444. 

'  Ueber  die  Erziehbarkeit  der  Aussage  bei  Schulkindem.  Beitrage  z.  Psy.  d. 
Aussage,  1905,  vol.  2,  Heft  3,  pp.  52-98. 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  3^9 

tinctly  superior  to  those  of  the  folk-school  both  in  spontaneity  and 
truthfulness,  but  the  pupils  of  the  latter  showed  better  results  from 
training.     The  more  gifted  pupils  did  best. 

A.  Bernstein  and  T.  Bogdanoff  ^  tested  286  children  from  seven  to 
fifteen  years  of  age.  Nine  arbitrary,  very  distinct,  but  simple  figures 
were  shown,  and  after  thirty  seconds  they  were  asked  to  identify  these 
nine  in  a  larger  group  of  twenty-five  also  arranged  in  the  form  of  a 
square,  children  of  each  age  being  tested  separately.  It  was  found 
that  from  eight  to  fifteen,  correct  identification  increased  with  great 
steadiness  from  six  to  eight  and  one  third  of  the  nine,  and  the  errors 
decreased,  though  slightly.  Thus  the  accuracy  of  reperception  or 
memory  improved  during  this  period.  This  was  also  true  for  the 
passive  tests. 

O.  Lipmann  and  E.  Wendriner  ^  asked  children  of  six  three  sets  of 
questions  concerning  one  and  the  same  object.  The  first  question  was 
without  any  suggestiveness ;  the  second  was  expectative  (Latin 
Nonne  or  Num)  ;  and  the  third  was  a  question  with  a  definite  pre- 
supposition in  it.  The  result  showed  that  knowledge  was  reduced  six- 
teen per  cent  and  faithfulness  of  reproduction  nineteen  per  cent  by 
the  suggestive  questions,  the  boys  doing  better  than  the  girls. 

O.  Kosog'  tested  forty  children  of  an  average  age  of  eight  and 
one  half  years  as  follows :  on  a  white  card  a  small  dot  of  ink  was  made 
and  the  pupil  must  retreat  until  it  could  no  longer  be  seen.  After  this 
had  been  done  three  times,  unknown  to  the  pupil  a  paper  with  no  ink 
spot  was  substituted.  Hearing  was  tested  by  a  tuning  fork  which 
could  be  heard  when  its  handle  was  placed  squarely  upon  a  resonator. 
This  was  done  at  first,  but  later,  unknown  to  the  pupil,  omitted. 
Smell  was  tested  by  pouring  from  a  small  bottle,  which  really  con- 
tained water,  into  a  glass  of  water  and  the  pupils  were  asked  what 
they  smelled.  Taste  was  tested  in  a  similar  way,  and  touch  was  tested 
with  a  feather,  the  pupils  being  requested  to  tell  when  they  felt  its 
touch.  Out  of  440  experiments  suggestion  succeeded  in  sixty-five 
per  cent  of  the  cases.  Deception  due  to  suggestion  occurred  for 
touch  least  often;  then  followed  sight,  hearing,  taste,  and  smell,  the 
last  showing  about  twice  the  suggestibility  of  the  first.  Good  pupils 
seemed  more  suggestible  than  poor  ones,  perhaps  because  they  were 
more  ambitious  to  show  their  power.  There  was  little  difference  of 
sex  and  little  effect  of  fatigue. 

Scripture  describes  the  first  lie  as  the  beginning  of  man's  fall 
from  paradise.     Since  then,  says  F.   Kemsics,*  the  lie  has  become 

'  Experimente  tiber  das  Verhalten  dcr  Mcrkfahigkoil  Vx-i  Schulkindcm.  Bei- 
trage  z.  Psy.  d.  Aussage,  1905,  vol.  2,  Heft  3,  pp.  115-131. 

*  Aussagc-Expcrimcnte  im  Kindergarten,  ibid.,  pp.  132-137. 

*  Suggestion  einfacher  Sinncswahmchmungen  bei  .Schulkindem.  Bcitrage  z. 
Psy.  d.  Aussage,  1905,  vol.  2,  Heft  3,  pp.  99-114. 

*  Zur  Einteilung  dcr  Liigen  und  Aussagen.  Zeits.  f.  piid.  Psy.,  Path.  u.  Hygiene, 
1905,  vol.  7,  Heft  3,  pp.  183-192. 

25 


370  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

universal  for  all  races  and  ages  despite  the  fact  that  it  is  every- 
where condemned.  Perhaps  nothing  is  a  better  measure  of  the  moral 
level  of  an  individual  or  a  race  than  the  proportion  of  falsehood 
and  truth  in  their  lives.  Many  seem  to  be  perjurers  by  nature,  and 
any  outrage  upon  truth  is  justified  if  it  attains  the  end.  The  study 
of  children's  falsehoods  has  been  in  recent  years  undertaken  in  a 
comprehensive  way,  and  now  psychologists,  teachers,  jurists,  and 
doctors  combined  are  shedding  much  new  light  upon  the  subject, 
and  many  experiments  and  pseudo-metric  methods  are  in  use.  The 
test  of  truth  is  in  the  degree  of  agreement  between  the  objective  thing 
or  act  and  the  subjective  conviction.  Kemsies  devises  an  intricate 
diagrammatic  method  of  indexes  of  truth  and  falsehood,  twenty-seven 
in  number,  showing  all  the  combinations  between  objective  reality 
and  conviction  in  order  to  determine  which  are  really  punishable 
and  which  are  due  to  imperfect  knowledge,  inadequate  or  partial 
forms  of  expression,  perception,  errors,  etc.  He  divides  lies  into 
the  following  ten  groups:  (i)  Spurious  lies  in  play,  tricks,  etc.; 
(2)  errors  in  the  form  of  statement;  (3)  errors  of  fact,  including 
illusions  of  memory,  judgment,  perception ;  (4)  excusive  lies  from 
anxiety,  embarrassment,  flattery,  and  idle  boasting;  (5)  lies  with  base 
motives,  selfishness,  defiance,  envy,  revenge;  (6)  those  with  noble 
motives,  such  as  humility,  self-sacrifice  for  others,  or  by  command; 
(7)  pure  lie  as  a  character  fault;  (8)  the  pathological  lies  of  hys- 
teria, moral  insanity,  epilepsy,  and  paralysis;  (9)  criminal  lies,  such 
as  theft,  counterfeiting,  treachery,  etc.;  (10)  lies  of  subnormal  in- 
dividuals. The  powers  of  expression  or  statement  can  be  systematic- 
ally improved  by  practice  and  instruction.  German  writers  have 
discussed  at  considerable  length  the  question  whether  children  can 
tell  real  lies  before  the  age  of  four.^  From  this  study  it  appears  that 
children  who  simulate  pain,  to  escape  from  something  they  desire  to 
avoid,  often  really  feel  the  pain  in  some  degree,  and  that  their  souls 
are  fields  of  both  positive  and  negative  illusions  of  memory. 

G.  L.  Duprat  ^  warns  us  against  relying  too  implicitly  upon  statis- 
tics to  determine  the  relative  force  of  children's  motives  for  lying. 
This  author  attempts  the  most  elaborate  classification  yet  made;  first, 
of  lies  themselves  into  (a)  affirmative,  due  to  exaggeration,  fiction, 
play,  calumnies,  and  simulation,  and  (b)  negative,  such  as  saying  "  no," 
elaborate  denials  and  dissimulation.  He  also  recognizes  attenuations 
of  the  truth,  sophistical  lies,  and  those  by  individuals  and  groups. 
He  then  classifies  the  liars  themselves.  The  affirmative  class  are 
imaginative  and  their  lies  may  be  marked  by  great  inventiveness,  by 
fraud,  falsification;  while  the  deniers  are  divided  into  those  by  habit 

'  Karl  L.  Schaefer:  Kommen  Liigen  bei  Kindem  vqr  dem  vierten  Jahre  vor? 
Zeits.  f.  pad.  Psy.,  Path.  u.  Hygiene,  1905,  vol.  7,  pp.  195-201.  See  also  Marci- 
nowski:  Zur  Frage  der  "Liige  bei  Kindem  unter  vier  Jahren,"  ibid.,  pp.  201-205. 

*  Une  enquete  psychologique  sur  le  mensonge  Bull,  de  la  See.  Libre  pour 
I'Etude  Psy.  de  I'Enfant,  1902,  pp.  220-229. 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  371 

and  by  accident.  Yet  more  complex  is  his  classification  of  the  psy- 
chological causes  and  the  principles  of  association  which  are  involved, 
(a)  Under  the  principle  of  invention  he  classifies  lies  of  pride,  boast- 
ing, cupidity,  social  and  antisocial  tendencies,  enthusiasm,  logism  or 
illogism.  (&)  The  negative  causes  are  attenuation,  fear,  shame,  and 
modesty,  repulsion,  antisocial  tendencies,  or  depression  and  lack  of 
generosity.  Under  pathological  causes  may  be  general,  such  as 
heredity,  prejudice,  custom,  politeness,  and  fraud,  or  local,  due  to 
religious  or  political  institutions,  servilism,  etc. 

The  following  study  was  made  under  my  direction  in 
Boston  in  1888. 

For  some  years  four  accomplished  and  tactful  lady  teach- 
ers, finding  in  even  the  best  ethical  literature  little  help  in 
understanding  and  in  dealing  with  certain  current  and  more 
or  less  licensed  forms  of  juvenile  dishonesty  connected  with 
modem  school  life,  undertook,  as  a  first  step  toward  getting 
a  fresh  and  independent  view  of  the  facts  of  the  situation,  to 
question  and  observe  individual  children,  by  a  predetermined 
system,  as  to  their  ideals  and  practices,  and  those  of  their 
mates  in  this  regard.  These  returns  now  represent  nearly 
three  hundred  city  children  of  both  sexes,  mostly  from  twelve 
to  fourteen  years  of  age,  selected,  generally,  by  the  teachers  as 
average  or  representative  children  in  this  respect,  and  inter- 
viewed privately  and  in  an  indirect  way,  most  carefully  de- 
signed to  avoid  all  indelicacy  to  the  childish  conscience. 
From  the  nature  of  the  subject,  and  from  the  diverse  degrees, 
not  only  of  interest,  but  even  of  trustworthiness  of  the  in- 
dividual returns,  as  well  as  from  the  fact  that  the  experience 
and  opinion  of  many  teachers  were  also  gathered,  the  results 
hardly  admit  tabular  statistical  presentation.  A  general  state- 
ment of  them,  according  to  the  groups  into  which  they  nat- 
urally fall,  will  be  serviceable,  it  is  hoped,  to  thoughtful 
parents  and  teachers  as  well  as  to  psychologists.^ 

L  No  children  were  found  destitute  of  high  ideals  of 
truthfulness.  Perhaps  the  lowest  moral  development  is  repre- 
sented by  about  a  dozen  children  who  regarded  every  deviation 
from  the  most  painfully  literal  truth  as  alike  heinous,  with  no 
perspective  or  degrees  of  difference  between  white  and  black 

'  I  am  indel)ted  to  Mrs.  Pauline  A.  Shaw  for  thr  means  to  cairy  out  this  study 
and  to  Miss  Sara  E.  Wiltsc  and  her  teachers  for  collecting  data. 


372  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

fibbing  and  the  most  barefaced,  intended,  or  unintended  lies. 
This  mental  state,  though  in  a  few  cases  probably  priggish 
and  affected,  became  in  others  so  neurotic  that  to  every  state- 
ment, even  to  yes  and  no,  "  I  think  "  or  "  perhaps  "  was  added 
mentally,  whispered,  or  in  two  cases  aloud,  and  nothing  could 
prompt  a  positive,  unqualified  assertion.  This  condition,  not 
unknown  among  adults  in  certain  morbid  states  of  conscience, 
we  will  designate  as  pseudophobia,  and  place  it  among  the 
many  other  morbid  fears  that  prey  upon  unformed  or  unpoised 
minds.  One  boy  told  of  "  spells  "  of  saying  over  hundreds 
of  times  when  alone  the  word  "  not,"  in  the  vague  hope  it 
might  somehow  be  interpolated  into  the  divine  record  of  his 
many  wrong  stories,  past  and  future,  to  disinfect  them  and 
neutralize  his  guilt.  Another  had  a  long  period  of  fear  that 
like  Ananias  and  Sapphira  he  might  some  moment  drop  down 
dead  for  a  chance,  and  perhaps  unconscious,  lie.  As  in  bar- 
baric lands  a  score  of  crimes,  though  perhaps  recognized  as  of 
different  degrees  of  depravity,  are  worthy  the  maximal  penalty 
of  death,  so  inaccuracies  of  statement,  though  distinguished 
from  blacker  falsehoods,  are  still  lies,  though  unintended. 
This  moral  superstition,  which  seemed  mostly  due  to  mixing 
ethical  and  religious  teaching  in  unpedagogic  ways  or  propor- 
tions in  home  or  Sunday-school,  is  happily  rare,  generally 
fugitive,  is  not  germane  to  the  nature  of  childhood,  and  is 
likely  to  rectify  itself.  Where  it  persists  it  begets  a  quibbling, 
word-splitting  tendency,  a  logolatry,  or  a  casuistic  habit  result- 
ing sometimes  in  very  systematized  palliatives,  tricks,  and 
evasions,  which  may  become  distinctly  morbid.  TJiere  are 
few  children  even  at  the  beginning  of  public-school  life  who 
need  much  help  in  distinguishing  between  unintentional  and 
premeditated  wrong  statements,  and  yet  a  little  aid  in  so 
doing,  if  given  with  proper  illustrations  and  tact,  is  almost 
sure  to  be  serviceable  in  developing  a  healthful  moral  con- 
sciousness. Of  this  state  we  desire  more  records  of  cases  with 
details  illustrative  of  cause  and  cure,  etc. 

IL  Strongly  contrasted  with  this  state,  and  far  more 
common,  is  that  in  which  lies  are  justified  as  means  to  noble 
ends.  Children  all  admire  burly  boys  who  by  false  confes- 
sions take  upon  themselves  the  penalties  for  the  sins  of  weaker 
playmates,  or  even  girls  who  are  conscious  of  being  favorites 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  373 

with  teacher  or  parent,  or  of  superior  powers  of  blandishment, 
and  who  claim  to  be  the  authors  of  the  misdeeds  of  their  more 
disfavored  mates.  The  situations,  especially  the  latter,  were 
met  with  many  times,  and  the  act  was  always  approved  though 
often  with  some  rather  formal  qualifications.  One  case, 
which  bore  traces  of  idealization,  was  described  in  which  the 
quality  of  the  heroism  was  of  almost  epic  magnificence,  and 
the  sin-bearer's  gracious  lie  seemed  to  have  quite  passed  out 
of  sight.  A  teacher  who  told  her  class  of  thirteen-year-old 
children  the  tale  of  the  French  girl  in  the  days  of  the  Com- 
mune, who,  when  on  her  way  to  execution  on  a  petty  charge, 
met  her  betrothed  and  responded  to  his  agonized  appeals, 
"  Sir,  I  do  not  know  you,"  and  passed  on  to  death  alone  be- 
cause she  feared  recognition  might  involve  him  in  her  doom, 
was  saddened  because  she  found  it  so  hard  to  make  her  pupils 
name  as  a  lie  what  was  so  eclipsed  by  heroism  and  love. 
Children  have  a  wholesome  instinct  for  viewing  moral  situa- 
tions as  wholes,  but  yet  are  not  insensitive  to  that  eager  and 
sometimes  tragic  interest  which  has  always  for  all  men  in- 
vested those  situations  in  both  Hfe  and  in  literature  where 
duties  seem  to  conflict.  The  normal  child  feels  the  heroism 
of  the  unaccountable  instinct  of  self-sacrifice  far  earlier  and 
more  keenly  than  it  can  appreciate  the  sublimity  of  truth. 
Theoretic  or  imagined  cases  of  this  kind  were  often  volun- 
teered by  the  children  with  many  variations.  They  declare, 
e.  g.,  that  they  would  say  that  their  mother  was  out  when  she 
was  in,  if  it  would  save  her  life,  giving  quite  a  scenic  setting 
to  such  a  possible  occurrence,  adding  infrequently  that  this 
would  not  make  it  exactly  right,  though  it  would  be  their  duty 
to  do  it,  or  that  they  would  not  tell  a  like  lie  to  save  their  own 
lives.  A  doctor,  too,  many  suggested,  might  tell  an  over- 
anxious patient  or  dearest  friend  that  there  was  hope,  easing 
his  conscience,  perhaps,  by  reflecting  that  they  had  some 
though  he  had  none.  In  confronting  such  cases,  it  is  the 
conscientious  parent  or  teacher  who  is  most  liable  to  get 
nervous  and  err.  It  is  feared,  that  although  the  end  is  very 
noble  and  the  fib  or  quibble  very  petty  at  first,  worse  lies  for 
meaner  objects  may  follow.  The  fondness  and  even  sense  of 
exhilaration,  with  which  children  often  dcscrilje  such  situa- 
tions, is  often  due  to  a  feeling  of  easement  from  a  rather 


374  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

tedious  sense  of  the  obligation  of  undiscriminating,  universal 
and  rigorously  literal  veracity,  under  which  also  very  often 
lurks  an  effort  to  find  the  flavor  of  exculpation  for  more  inex- 
cusable lies.  The  teacher  may  by  multiplying,  analyzing,  or 
even  by  too  much  attention  to  such  cases  develop  a  kind  of 
morbid  ethical  self-consciousness  and  precocity.  He  may,  as 
the  history  of  education  shows,  make  even  children  into 
casuists  gravely  disputing  about  the  grand  moral  forces  that 
beneath  all  others  make  the  world  of  man  their  revelation  or 
their  sport.  No  two  children  and  no  two  moral  situations  are 
alike.  Here  human  science  faces  problems  still  too  complex 
for  formulation,  where  the  adult  has  really  very  little  to  teach 
the  child,  and  where  conference  and  suggestion,  and  even 
instruction,  should  be. restricted  to  specific  and  individual  cases 
and  not  lapse  into  generalization.  The  special  pedagogic 
utilization  of  these  cases  should  generally,  we  believe,  be  the 
following.  The  child  who  gets  really  interested  in  what  it 
deems  the  conflict  of  veracity  with  other  duties,  may  be 
reverently  referred  to  the  inner  light  of  its  own  conscience. 
This  seems  to  be  a  special  opportunity  of  Nature  for  teaching 
the  need  of  keeping  a  private  protestant  tribunal  where  per- 
sonal moral  convictions  preside,  and  which  alone  enables  men 
to  adapt  themselves  to  new  ethical  situations  or  environments. 
HL  With  most  children,  as  with  savages,  truthfulness  is 
greatly  affected  by  personal  likes  and  dislikes.  In  many  cases 
they  could  hardly  be  brought  to  see  wrong  in  lies  a  parent 
or  some  kind  friend  had  wished  them  to  tell.  Often  suspected 
lies  were  long  persisted  in  till  they  were  asked  if  they  would 
have  said  that  to  their  mothers,  when  they  at  once  weakened. 
No  cases  were  more  frequent  than  where,  in  answer  to  a 
friend's  question,  if  some  thing  or  act  they  did  not  particularly 
admire,  was  not  very  nice  or  pretty,  they  found  it  hard  to 
say  "  no,"  and  compromised  on  "  kind  of  nice,"  or  "  pretty 
enough,"  when  if  a  strange  pupil  had  asked  they  would  have 
had  no  trouble  with  their  consciences.  The  girls  in  our  returns 
were  more  addicted  to  this  class  of  lies  than  boys.  Boys  keep 
up  joint  or  complotted  lies  which  girls  rarely  do,  who  "  tell 
on"  others  because  they  are  "sure  to  be  found  out,"  or  "  some 
one  else  will  tell,"  while  boys  can  be  more  readily  brought  to 
confess  small  thefts,  and  are  surer  to  own  up  if  caught,  than 


CHILDREN'S    LIES  375 

girls.  A  question  of  personal  interest  with  girls  is  how  far  eti- 
quette may  stretch  truth  to  avoid  rudeness  or  hurting  others' 
feelings.  All  children  find  it  harder  to  cheat  in  their  lessons 
with  a  teacher  they  like.  Friendships  are  cemented  by  frank 
confidences  and  secrets  and  promises  not  to  tell,  as  adults  with 
real  attachments  desire  to  know  and  be  known  without  reserva- 
tion, without  overpraise  or  flattery,  and  to  rely  on  and  per- 
form pledges.  To  simulate  or  dissimulate  to  the  priest,  or 
above  all,  to  God,  was  repeatedly  referred  to  as  worst  of  all. 
On  the  other  hand,  with  waning  attachment,  promises  not  to 
tell  weaken  in  their  validity.  Strange  children,  and  espe- 
cially impertinent  meddlers,  may  be  told  "  I  do  not  know  " 
when  one  means  "  none  of  your  business  "  as  a  mental  reserva- 
tion. Children  say  they  are  not  going  to  a  pface  they  intend 
to  visit  to  avoid  unwelcome  company,  and  victimize  an  enemy 
by  any  lie  or  strategy  they  can  invent.  Truth  for  our  friends 
and  Ue_s  for  our  enemies  is  a  practical,  though  not  distinctly 
conscious  rule  widely  current  with  children,  as  with  uncivilized 
and,  indeed,  even  with  civilized  races.  Rural  children  are 
more  liable  to  long  and  close  intimacies,  and  are  more  shy  and 
suspicious  of  all  strangers.  The  sense  of  personal  loyalty  to 
those  who  are  admired  is  so  strong  that  it  has  produced,  not 
only  many  kinds  and  systems  of  fagging,  but  inclines  children 
to  mistake  what  pleases  their  idol  as  good  and  true.  If  their 
favorites  desire  or  even  permit  them  to  lie  or  cheat  for  their 
benefit,  as  false  codes  sometimes  require,  if  extravagant  vows 
or  protestations  are  made  that  cannot  be  kept,  or  that  must  be 
kept  at  great  moral  cost,  or  if  too  many  secrets  are  shared  that 
need  often  to  be  guarded  by  prevarications,  then  children  are 
being  trained  for  corrupt  combinations  of  any  sort  in  adult 
life.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  through  the  instinct  of  personal 
fealty,  so  strong  in  children  that  most  men  have  grown  up  to 
a  sense  of  fidelity  to  God  and  even  of  the  obligation  of 
scientific  truthfulness.  It  has  taken  mankind  long  enough 
to  learn  the  sublimity  of  a  kind  of  tnith fulness  which  is  no 
respecter  of  persons.  The  best  correction  of  this  general 
tendency  of  children,  we  l)elieve  to  Ik?  instruction  in  science, 
the  moral  needs  and  uses  of  which  alone  call  loudly  for  more 
of  it  and  l^etter.  But  the  teachers  of  younger  cluldrcn  should 
look  well  to  their  friendships,  and  study,  especially,  the  char- 


376  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

acter  of  leaders  and  favorites  and  try  to  mold  it  as  well  as 
strive  to  be  loved  by  all,  not  forgetting  that  only  children  with 
bad  friends  are  worse  ofif  than  those  with  none,  and  that  they 
will  be  more  faithful  to  great  causes  for  having  been  faithful 
to  dear  and  good, friends. 

IV.  The  greatest  number  of  lies  in  our  collections  are 
prompted  by  some  of  the  more  familiar  manifestations  of 
^selfishness.  Every  game,  especially,  every  exciting  one,  has 
its  own  temptation  to  cheat ;  and  long  records  of  miscounts  in 
tallies,  moving  balls  in  croquet,  crying  out  "  no  play  "  or  "  no 
fair  "  at  critical  moments  to  divert  impending  defeat,  false 
claims  made  to  umpires,  and  scores  of  others  show  how  un- 
scrupulous the  all-constraining  passion  to  excel  often  renders 
even  young  children.  In  those  games  which  attract  wider 
attention,  where  sets  of  picked  players  are  pitted  against  one 
another,  and  the  prizes  in  local  fame  are  great  and  immediate, 
dexterity  in  cheating  is  sometimes  regarded  as  a  legitimate 
qualification  along  with  others,  the  only  discredit  being,  as  in 
the  lies  Spartan  children  were  encouraged  to  tell,  in  getting 
found  out.  Lies  of  this  kind,  prompted  by  excitement,  are 
so  easily  forgotten  when  the  excitement  is  over  that  they 
rarely  rankle,  and  are  hard  to  get  at,  but  they  make  boys 
unscrupulous  and  grasping.  School  life  is  responsible  for 
very  many,  if  not  most  of  the  deliberate  lies  of  this  class. 
Where  the  vicious  system  of  self-reporting  for  petty  offenses, 
like  whispering,  exists,  children  confess  not  showing  their 
hands  when  they  are  guilty.  If  pressed  to  tell  if  they  saw  or 
did  a  wrong  they  lie,  and  add,  perhaps,  that  it  is  very  easy  to 
lie  to  get  out  of  school  scrapes.  Few  will  not  give,  and  not 
many  will  not  take  prompts  or  peep  in  their  books,  especially 
if  in  danger  of  being  dropped  or  failing  of  promotion.  Chil- 
dren copy  school  work  and  monitors  get  others  to  do  theirs  as 
pay  for  not  reporting  them,  while  if  a  boy  is  reported  he  tells 
of  as  much  disorder  as  possible  on  the  part  of  others,  to  show 
that  the  monitor  did  not  do  his  duty.  As  school  work  is  now 
done,' much  of  it  is  of  a  kind  that  can  be  bought  and  sold. 
One  teacher  in  a  large  city  stated  that  so  much  more  than  they 
could  really  do  was  required  of  her  pupils  that  she  and  her 
teacher  friends  were  now  obliged,  in  order  that  their  rooms 
should  not  be  unfavorably  reported,  to  rewrite  the  English 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  377 

exercises  of  many  of  their  pupils,  to  be  copied  again  by  them 
before  being  seen  by  the  examiners  who  had  no  time  to  see 
the  work  in  process  of  doing.  This  could  hardly  have  been  a 
lesson  in  honesty  to  the  pupils.  The  long  list  of  headaches, 
nosebleeds,  stomach  aches,  etc.,  feigned,  to  get  out  of  or  avoid 
going  to  school,  of  false  excuses  for  absence  and  tardiness, 
the  teacher,  especially  if  disliked,  being  so  often  exceptionally 
fair  game  for  all  the  arts  of  deception ;  all  this  seems  generally 
prevalent.  This  class  of  lies  eases  children  over  so  many  hard 
places  in  lifg  and  is  a  convenient  cover  for  weakness  and  even 
vice.  To  lie  easily  and  skillfully  removes  the  restraint  of  the 
more  or  less  artificial  consequences  attached  by  home  and 
school  to  childish  wrongdoing,  and  increased  immunity  always 
tenipts  to  sin.  The  facility  with  which  a  whole  street  or  school 
may  be  corrupted  in  this  respect,  often  without  suspicion  on 
the  part  of  adults,  by  a  single  bold,  bad,  but  popular  child,  the 
immunity  from  detection  which  school  offers  so  much  more 
than  home  for  even  habitual  lies  of  this  class,  as  well  as  the 
degree  of  moral  degradation  to  which  they  may  lead,  all  point 
to  selfish  fals£liQods — especially  when  their  prevalence  is  taken 
into  account — as  on  the. whole  4he  most  dangerous,  corrupting, 
and  hard  to  correct- of-any  of  our  species.  Excessive  emula- 
tions^ pEnaTtTes7  opportunities,  and  temptations  should  of 
course  be  reduced,  but  it  should  be  clearly  seen  that  aUjtbese 
li€S.  are  at  hottfirn,  in  a  peculiar  sense,  forms  of  self-indulgence, 
and  should,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  be  treated  as  such, 
rather  than  dealt  with  directly  as  lies.  Th«  bad  habits  they 
cover  should  be  patiently  sought  out  and  corrected,  for  those 
who  habitually  do  ill  are  sure  to  learn  to  lie  to  conceal  it. 
jThe  sense  of  meanness  this  slowly  breeds  must  be  met  by 
appeals  to  honor,  self-respect,  self-control.  Hard  and  even 
I  nated  tasks,  and  rugged  moral  and  mental  regimen  should 
1  supplement  those  modem  methods  which  make  education  a 
'  sort  of  self-indulgence  of  natural  interests. 

V.  Much  childish  play  owes  its  charm  to  partial  self- 
deception.  Children  imagine  or  make  believe  they  are  ani- 
mals, making  their  noises  and  imitating  their  activities:  that 
they  are  soldiers,  and  imagine  panoramas  of  warlike  events; 
that  they  are  hunters  in  extreme  peril  from  wild  beasts; 
Indians,   artisans,   and   tradesmen   of   many   kinds;   doctors. 


378  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

preachers,  angels,  ogres.  They  play  school,  court,  meeting, 
congress.  If  hit  with  wooden  daggers  in  the  game  of  war 
they  stand  aside  and  play  they  are  dead.  If  they  step  on  a 
crack  in  walking  the  floor,  curbing,  sidewalk,  etc.,  they  say 
that  they  are  poisoned.  Protruding  spots  of  earth  or  land  in 
pools  or  ponds,  or  at  half  tide  in  the  bay,  suggest  the  geography 
of  a  continent,  and  in  one  case,  for  years,  Boston,  Providence, 
West  Indies,  Gibraltar,  Brooklyn  Bridge  were  thus  designated 
by  all  the  children  of  a  large  school  in  their  plays.  In  another, 
a  dozen  hills  and  valleys,  rills,  near  by  were  named  from 
fancied  resemblance  to  the  familiar  mountains,  rivers,  and 
valleys  of  the  geography.  The  play  house  sometimes  is  so 
real  as  to  have  spools  for  barrels  of  flour,  pounded  rotten  wood 
for  sugar,  pumpkin  chairs,  cucumber  cows,  moss  carpets,  sticks 
for  doors  which  must  be  kept  shut,  sometimes  cleaned,  twig 
brooms,  pet  animals  for  stock  with  pastures  and  yards,  all 
the  domestic  industries  in  pantomime,  toadstools,  lichens  and 
puffballs  for  bric-a-brac,  while  some  older  boy  and  girl  may 
play  parents  with  secret  pet  names,  and  younger  ones  as  chil- 
dren, often  for  a  whole  term  and  in  rare  instances  for  years; 
all  of  this,  of  course,  being  almost  always  in  the  country. 
They  baptize  cats,  bury  dolls,  have  puppet  shows  with  so  many 
pins  admission,  all  with  elaborate  details.  They  dress  up  and 
mimic  other  often  older  people,  ride  on  the  horse  cars  and 
imagine  them  fine  carriages,  get  up  doll  hospitals  and  play 
surgeon  or  Florence  Nightingale.  The  more  severe  the  dis- 
cipline of  the  play  teacher  and  the  more  savage  the  play  mother 
the  better  the  fun. 

One  phase  of  this  is  exquisitely  illustrated  in  the  life  of 
Hartley  Coleridge,  by  his  brother.  His  many  conceptions  of 
his  own  ego — e.  g.,  by  the  picture  Hartley,  shadow  Hartley, 
echo  Hartley,  etc. ;  his  fancy  that  a  cataract  of  what  he  named 
jug- force  would  burst  out  in  a  certain  field,  and  flow  between 
populous  banks  where  an  ideal  government,  long  wars  and 
even  a  reformed  spelling  illustrated  in  a  journal  devoted  to 
the  affairs  of  this  realm,  were  all  developed  in  his  imagination 
where  they  existed  with  great  reality  for  years;  his  stories  to 
his  mother  continued  for  weeks ;  his  reproduction  of  all  he  had 
seen  in  London,  its  theater,  laboratory,  and  what  he  had  read 
of  wars,  geographical  divisions,  in  a  large  playground  appro- 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  379 

priated  to  his  use — these  all  illustrate  this  normal  tendency, 
but  in  a  degree  of  intensity  probably  morbid,  much  resembling 
the  pseudo-hallucinations  of  Kandinsky.  Two  sisters  used  to 
say,  "  Let  us  play  we  are  sisters,"  thus  making  the  relation 
more  real.  Cagliostro  found  adolescent  boys  particularly  apt 
for  his  training  to  subserve  the  exhibition  of  the  phrenologic- 
al impostures  illustrating  his  thirty-five  faculties.  "  He  lied 
when  he  confessed  he  had  lied,"  said  a  young  Sancho  Panza 
who  had  believed  the  wild  tales  of  another  boy  who  later  con- 
fessed their  falsity.  Sir  James  Mackintosh  in  youth  after 
reading  Roman  history  used  to  fancy  himself  the  emperor  of 
Constantinople,  and  carry  on  the  administration  of  the  realm, 
hours  at  a  time  and  often  resumed  for  months.  These  fancies 
of  his  never  amounted  to  conviction,  but  doubtless  excited  a 
faint  expectation,  which,  had  they  been  realized,  would  have 
lessened  wonder.  Charlotte  Elizabeth  lived  largely  in  an 
imaginary  realm  for  years  in  her  youth. 

In  some  games  like  "  crazy  mother,"  younger  children  are 
commanded,  or  older  ones  stumped  or  dared,  to  do  dangerous 
things,  like  walking  a  picket  fence  or  a  high  roof,  etc.,  in  Which 
the  spirit  of  play  overcomes  great  natural  timidity;  and  by 
playing  school  with  other  mates,  or  perhaps  parents,  they  are 
helped  by  the  play  instinct  to  do  hard  examples  and  other  hated 
tasks  they  had  scarcely  accomplished  in  actual  schools.  The 
stimulus  and  charm  of  the  imagination  make  them  act  a  part 
different  from  their  natural  selves ;  some  games  need  darkness 
to  help  out  the  fancy.  It  seems  almost  the  rule  that  imagina- 
tive children  are  more  likely  to  be  dull  in  school  work,  and  that 
those  who  excel  in  it  are  more  likely  to  have  fewer  or  less  vivid 
mental  images  of  their  own.  Especially  with  girls,  it  is  chiefly 
those  under  ten  or  twelve  who  play  most  actively  in  our  school 
yards,  but  those  of  thirteen  or  fifteen,  who,  under  the  apathy 
that  generally  'affects  girls  of  that  age,  walk  in  pairs,  or  small 
groups  up  and  down  the  yard  and  talk,  are  no  less  imaginative. 
One  early  manifestation  of  the  shadowy  falsity  to  fact  of  the 
idealizing  temperament  is  often  seen  in  children  of  three  or 
four,  who  suddenly  assert  that  they  saw  a  pig  with  five  ears, 
a  dog  as  big  as  a  horse,  or,  if  older,  apples  on  a  cherry  tree, 
and  other  Munchausen  wonders,  which  really  mean  at  first  but 
little  more  than  that  they  have  that  thought  or  have  made  that 


380  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

mental  combination  independently  of  experience.  They  come 
to  love  to  tell  semiplausible  stories,  and  perhaps  when  the 
astonishment  is  over  to  confess.  Or,  again,  all  stories  of  men 
and  things  they  hear  are  given  a  setting  in  the  natural  scenery, 
or  far  less  often,  in  the  houses  they  know  best,  and  their  friends 
are  cast  in  the  roles.  The  fancy  of  some  children  is  almost 
visualization,  and  a  few  will  tell  at  once,  e.  g.,  what  was  the 
color  of  Barbara  Frietchie's  dress,  whether  she  wore  glasses 
and  a  cap,  just  where  in  their  father's  sheep  pasture  the  goblin 
in  the  "  Arabian  Nights  "  rose  out  of  the  bottle,  if  pictures  of 
these  objects  have  not  obviated  the  normal  action  ot  this  fac- 
ulty. Reverie  which  materializes  all  wishes,  and  the  myth- 
opoeic  faculty  which  still  occasionally  creates  a  genuine  myth 
among  children,  boys  who  amuse  their  mates  with  long  and 
often  clever  yarns  of  their  own  invention,  girls  who  make  up 
ridiculous  things  about  others — to  all  these  the  school  has  paid 
little  attention,  and  Mr.  Gradgrind  would  war  upon  them  all 
as  inimical  to  scientific  veracity.  We  might  almost  say  of  chil- 
dren at  least,  somewhat  as  Froschammer  argues  of  mental  ac- 
tivity, and  even  of  the  universe  itself,  that  all  their  life  is  im- 
agination. Such  exercise  of  their  faculties  children  must  have 
even  in  the  most  platonic  school  republic.  Its  control  and  not 
its  elimination  is  what  is  to  be  sought  in  the  high  interest  of 
truthfulness.  The  progressive  degeneration  of  the  school 
reader,  and  the  simultaneous  development  of  flash  literature  for 
the  young,  has  had  much  to  do  with  the  growth  of  evil  tenden- 
cies in  this  field.  To  direct  and  utilize,  so  far  as  it  needs  it, 
this  manifestation  of  the  play  instinct,  which,  though  sporting 
with  lies  so  gracious  and  innocent,  may  lead  to  so  many  kinds 
of  divorce  of  thought  from  reality  and  to  self-deception,  the 
whole  question  of  how  best  to  introduce  the  young  to  the  best 
literature  of  the  world,  each  kind  and  grade  in  fit  time  and 
proportion,  must,  we  believe,  be  pondered,  and  to  this  problem 
we  shall  turn  elsewhere.  How  much  of  this  can  best  be  appre- 
ciated in  children,  and,  if  its  peculiar  quality  of  fancy  is  once 
lost,  must  remain  caviare  to  it,  only  those  know  who  have 
realized  in  their  own  experience  and  observation  how  youthful 
minds  find  and  play  about  the  chief  beauties  of  ballads,  of 
Homer  properly  told  in  English,  and  of  the  radical  conceptions 
and  great  situations  in  the  choicest  English  writers,  if  only  put 


CHILDREN'S    LIES  381 

in  proper  form.  Psychologically,  imaginative  literature  is  a 
direct  development  from  this  variety  of  play,  and  into  this  its 
unfoldment  is  natural. 

VI.  A  less  common  class  of  what  we  may  call  pathological 
lies  was  illustrated  by  about  a  score  of  cases  in  our  returns. 
The  love  of-shaadng-  off  and  seaming  big,  tp  attract  attention 
or  to  win  admiration,  sometimes  leads  children,  e.  g.,  on  going 
to  a  iiew  tovv^n  or  school,  to  assume  false  characters,  kept  up 
with  difficulty  by  many  false  pretenses  awhile,  but  likely  to 
become  transparent  and  collapse,  and  to  get  the  masker  gen- 
erally disliked.  A  few  children,  especially  girls,  are  honey- 
combed with  morbid  self-consciousness  and  affectation,  and 
seem  to  have  no  natural  character  of  their  own,  but  to  be 
always  acting  a  part  and  attracting  attention.  Boys  prefer 
fooling,  and  humbugging  by  tricks  or  lies,  sometimes  of  almost 
preternatural  acuteness  and  cleverness.  Several,  e.  g.,  com- 
bined to  make  what  seemed  a  very  complex  instrument,  with 
cords  and  pulleys  and  joints,  called  an  "  electrizer."  Boys 
not  in  the  secret  were  told  to  press  smartly  on  the  knob  and 
they  would  feel  a  shock,  when  there  was  only  a  hidden  pin. 
This  is  the  normal  diathesis  which  develops  girls  into  hyster- 
ical invalids,  deceiving  sometimes  themselves  and  sometimes 
their  relatives,  on  whom  faith  curers  work  genuine  miracles, 
and  which  makes  boys  into  charlatans  and  impostors  of  many 
kinds.  It  is  hard  for  many  to  believe  that  certain  women  who 
fulfill  their  social  and  domestic  duties  creditably  can,  with 
such  placid  naivete,  relate  long  series  of  occurrences  which 
they  know  to  be  utterly  false,  and  that  men  they  meet  are 
indulging  a  life-long  passion  for  deception,  that  they  love  the 
stimulus  of  violent  ruptures  with  truth,  or  love  lies  for  their 
own  sake,  as  victims  of  other  intoxicants  love  strong  drink. 
The  recent  literature  of  both  telepathy  and  hypnotism  furnishes 
many  striking  examples  of  this  type.  Accessory  motives,  love 
of  applause,  money,  etc.,  are  at  first  involved,  but  later  what 
we  may  designate  as  a  veritable  pseudomania  supervenes  where 
lies  for  others,  and  even  self-deception  is  an  appetite  indulged 
directly  against  every  motive  of  prudence  and  interest.  As 
man  cannot  l)e  false  to  others  if  true  to  self,  so  he  cannot 
experience  the  dangerous  exhilaration  of  deceiving  others 
without  being  in  a  measure  his  own  victim,  left  to  believe  his 


382  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

own  lie.  Those  who  have  failed  in  many  legitimate  endeavors 
learn  that  they  can  make  themselves  of  much  account  in  the 
world  by  adroit  lying.  These  cases  demand  the  most  prompt 
and  drastic  treatment.  If  the  withdrawal  of  attention  and 
sympathy,  and  belief  in  the  earlier  manifestations,  and  if  in- 
struction and  stern  reprimand  are  not  enough,  there  is  still 
virtue  in  the  rod,  which  should  not  be  spared,  and,  if  this  fail, 
then  the  doctor  should  be  called. 

VIL  Finally,  children  have  many  palliatives  for  lies  that 
wound  the  conscience.  If  one  says  "  really "  or  "  truly," 
especially  if  repeated,  and  most  solemnly  of  all,  "  I  wish  to 
drop  down  dead  this  minute,  if  it  is  not  so,"  the  validity  of  any 
statement  is  greatly  reduplicated.  Only  a  child  who  is  very 
hardened  in  falsehood,  very  fearful  of  consequences,  or  else 
truthful,  will  reiterate  "  it  is  so  anyhow,"  even  to  tears  in  the 
face  of  evidence  he  cannot  rebut,  while  others  will  confess  or 
simulate  a  false  confession  as  the  easiest  issue.  Only  young 
children  who  mistake  for  truth  whatever  pleases  their  elders, 
or,  occasionally  those  too  much  commended  for  so  doing,  find 
pleasure  in  confessing  what  they  never  did.  To  say.  Yes,  and 
add  in  whisper,  "  in  my  mind,"  meant  No,  among  the  children 
of  several  schools  at  least  in  one  large  city.  To  put  the  left 
hand  on  the  right  shoulder  also  has  power,  many  think,  to 
reverse  a  lie,  and  even  an  oath  may  be  neutralized  or  taken  in 
an  opposite  sense  by  raising  the  left  instead  of  the  right  hand. 
To  think  "  I  do  not  mean  it,"  or  to  mean  it  in  a  different  sense, 
sometimes  excruciatingly  different  from  what  is  currently 
understood  was  a  form  of  mental  reservation  repeatedly  found. 
If  one  tries  not  to  hear  when  called,  he  may  say  he  did  not  hear, 
with  less  guilt.  An  acted  lie  is  far  less  frequently  felt  than  a 
spoken  one,  so  to  nod  is  less  sinful  than  to  say  Yes ;  to  point  the 
wrong  way  when  asked  where  some  one  is  gone,  is  less  guilty 
than  to  say  wrongly.  Pantomimed  lies  are,  in  short,  for  the 
most  part,  easily  gotten  away  with.  It  is  very  common  for 
children  to  deny  in  the  strongest  and  most  solemn  way  wrongs 
they  are  accused  of,  and  when,  at  length,  evidence  is  over- 
whelming, to  explain  or  to  think,  "  My  hand,  or  foot  did  it, 
not  I."  This  distinction  is  not  unnatural  in  children  whose 
teachers  or  parents  so  often  snap  or  whip  the  particular  mem- 
ber which  has  committed  the  offense.    In  short,  hardly  any  of 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  383 

the  sinuosities  lately  asserted,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  of 
the  earlier  Jesuit  confessionals,  and  all  the  elaborated  phar- 
macopoeia of  placebos  they  are  said  to  have  used  to  ease  con- 
sciences outraged  by  falsehood,  seem  reproduced  in  the 
spontaneous  endeavors  of  children  to  mitigate  the  poignancy 
of  this  sense  of  guilt. 

In  fine,  some  forms  of  the  habit  of  lying  are  so  prevalent 
among  young  children  that  all  illustrations  of  it,  like  the  above, 
seem  trite  and  commonplace.  Thoroughgoing  truthfulness 
comes  hard  and  late,  and  school  life  is  so  full  of  temptation 
to  falsehood  that  an  honest  child  is  its  rarest,  as  well  as  its 
noblest,  work.  The  chief  practical  point  is  for  the  teacher  to 
distinguish  the  different  forms  of  the  disease  and  apply  the 
remedies  best  for  each.  So  far  from  being  a  simple  perversity, 
it  is  so  exceedingly  complex,  and  born  of  such  diverse  and 
even  opposite  tendencies,  that  a  course  of  treatment  that  would 
cure  one  form,  would  sometimes  directly  aggravate  another. 
If  we  pass  from  the  standpoint  of  Mrs.  Opie  to  the  deeper,  but 
often  misconceived  one  of  Heinroth,  and  strive  to  realize  the 
sense  in  which  all  sin  and  all  disease  are  lies,  because  perver- 
sions of  the  intent  of  nature,  we  shall  see  how  habitual  false- 
hood may  end,  and  in  what,  in  a  broad  sense,  it  begins.  A 
robust  truth-speaking  is  the  best  pedagogic  preparation  for 
active  life,  which  holds  men  up  to  the  top  of  their  moral  con- 
dition above  the  false  beliefs,  false  fears,  and  false  shames, 
hopes,  loves  we  are  prone  to.  The  effort  to  act  a  part  or  fill 
a  place  in  life  for  which  nature  has  not  made  us,  whether  it 
l)e  school  bred,  or  instinctively  fascinating  to  intoxication  as 
it  is  for  feeble,  characterless,  psychophysic  constitutions,  is 
one  of  the  chief  sources  of  waste  of  moral  energy  in  modern 
society;  lies,  acted,  spoken,  imagined,  give  that  morbid  self- 
consciousness  so  titillating  to  neurotic  constitutions.  The 
habitual  gratification  of  all  a  child's  wishes  indirectly  cultivates 
mendacity,  for  truth  requires  a  robust  and  hardy  self-sacrifice, 
which  luxury  makes  impossible.  Much  society  of  strangers 
where  "  first  impressions  "  are  consciously  made,  favors  it. 
Frequent  change  of  environment,  or  of  school  or  residence, 
favors  it,  for  a  feeling  that  "  new  leaves  "  can  be  easily  turned 
arises.  Frequent  novelties,  even  of  studies,  probably  cultivate 
one  of  its  most  incurable  forms,  viz.,  that  state  of  nerves  where 


384  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

the  first  impression  is  strong  and  vivid  and  pleasurable,  while 
repetitions  are  indifferent,  if  not  soon  positively  painful;  a 
condition  which,  but  for  multiplying  the  already  large  number 
of  mild  manias,  might  be  called  neomania.  Children  should 
be  shielded  from  both  the  professional  mendacity  and  the  false 
exaggeration  of  the  abnormal  of  the  modern  newspaper,  and 
held  to  long  and  firm  responsibility  for  their  acts  and  words. 
When  men  or  civilizations,  yet  capable  of  it,  give  up  the  lie 
and  fall  back  to  their  best  and  truest  selves,  to  be  and  to 
be  accepted  for  what  they  really  are  by  nature  and  hered- 
ity, one  of  the  highest  and  most  intense  of  all  pleasures  is 
realized,  which,  though  narrowed  and  conventionalized  by 
many  religious  and  dogmatic  systems,  is  very  manifold  and 
may  appear  as  general  moral  reformation,  new  intellectual  in- 
sights, emotional  easement  and  satisfaction,  greater  energy  in 
action,  and  perhaps  even  greater  physical  betterment  in  cer- 
tain forms  of  disease  in  certain  temperaments,  and,  in  a  word, 
is  still  from  the  standpoint  of  scientific  psychology,  not 
unworthy  the  grand  old — but  greatly  abused  term — Re- 
generation. 

Why  do  children  He  ?  asks  N.  Oppenheim  ^  and  he  answers  by  say- 
ing that  very  many  do  it  for  no  recognized  reason,  and  it  is  generally 
thought  to  be  an  indication  of  spontaneous  viciousness,  but  in  most 
cases  it  is  due  to  disorders  of  body  or  mind  which  interfere  with  the 
transmission  of  concepts  or  percepts  from  the  internal  to  the  external 
processes  of  expression  so  that  they  are  unable  to  be  more  exact  than 
they  seem.  Punishment  confirms  and  aggravates  these  difficulties. 
Truth  is  not  the  only  means  of  saving  grace.  The  right  physical 
and  mental  environment  may  cause  a  spontaneous  reform  in  a  liar. 
Any  cause  that  makes  for  intellectual  tenuity  or  a  morbid  nervous 
condition  favors  it.  Teaching  by  rote,  mechanical  repetition  and 
vicious  stimuli  that  tend  to  a  psychic  poverty  help  it  on.  The  right 
impression  is  side  tracked  and  many  people  should  no  more  be  pun- 
ished for  lying  than  for  color  blindness.  A  faulty  disposition  which 
irritates,  repressing  normal  or  exaggerated  abnormal  impressions, 
tends  to  break  up  concepts.  Eye  troubles,  catarrhs,  hysteria,  loss  of 
appetite  and  sleep  tend  in  the  same  direction. 

Earl  Barnes  ^  says  children  He  because  they  cannot  tell  the  truth, 
for  truth  involves  knowledge.  Their  idea  of  truth  is  loyalty  to  per- 
sons.   Egotism  and  contagion  are  sources  of  untruthfulness.     In  the 

*  Why  Children  Lie,  Pop.  Sci.  Mo.,  1895,  vol.  47,  pp.  382-387. 
'Why  Children  Lie,  Current  Literature,  1903,  vol.  34,  pp.  213-214. 


CHILDREN'S   LIES  3^5 

sixteenth  century  one  hundred  thousand  people  were  put  to  death  for 
witchcraft.  Many  of  them  and  most  of  the  witnesses  were  children, 
usually  girls  from  twelve  to  fourteen.  The  Children's  Crusade  illus- 
trated the  same  thing.  If  children  misrepresent  the  truth  it  is 
a  secondary  symptom.  '  They  are  timid,  or  want  something.  If 
you  punish  them  you  aggravate  the  difficulty.  At  three  or  four  the 
child  distinguishes  well  the  lie  from  the  truth.  It  can  even  play 
with  fear  and  realizes  what  "  for  fun "  means.  Indeed,  it  would 
seem  that  by  fourteen  months  this  is  well  understood.  Then  it 
comes  to  distinguish  with  interest  between  what  is  truly  real  and 
what  is  not. 

J.  Triiper '  says  the  He  begins  in  error.  The  general  view  is  that 
it  is  innate.  This  view  was  held  not  only  by  mediaeval  theology,  but 
by  Roth  in  his  ethics,  and  by  Montaigne  and  Perez.  It  is  described 
as  a  part  of  the  selfishness  of  children.  Every  child,  says  Boudin, 
is  a  liar.  Perez  thinks  the  same,  but  ascribes  it  to  the  frequency 
with  which  children  are  allowed  to  see  deception  about  them.  The 
true  view  probably  is  that  the  newborn  child  has  no  moral  quality, 
good  or  bad,  and  is  therefore  incapable  of  truth  or  untruth;  is,  in 
fact,  not  a  moral  being,  but  possessing  only  the  possibility  of  becom- 
ing one.  Fancy  and  egoism  are  the  mainsprings  of  falsehood,  and 
we  may  here  observe  Herbart's  distinction  between  the  faults  the 
child  makes  and  those  it  has.  This  makes  truthfulness  a  matter  of 
education.  Jean  Paul  Richter  says  in  the  first  five  years  children 
never  speak  truth  or  falsehood.  They  merely  think  aloud.  Deception 
often  begins  with  gestures  and  before  speech  is  developed,  although 
this  opens  to  it  a  far  larger  field.  Some  children  soon  develop  a  great 
love  of  producing  an  effect,  and  if  their  imagination  is  brilliant,  have 
thus  an  added  temptation  to  lie,  while  cowardice,  obstinacy,  self- 
will  and  bad  examples  do  their  sad  work.  Sometimes  with  hereditary 
predispositions  a  lie  is  believed  and  may  even  become  an  hallucina- 
tion. In  treatment  special  effort  should  be  directed  to  produce  sincere 
regret. 

J.  G.  Compayre  *  says  children  are  not  content  with  repeating  what 
they  have  seen  or  heard,  but  they  must  invent  or  travesty.  Perez  ' 
says  that  even  in  the  cradle  we  sometimes  see  infants  disposed  to  dis- 
simulation and  ruse.  Children  have  natural  finesse  and  take  to  petty 
artifices  because  they  are  weak.  Without  being  born  so,  they  may 
become  liars  through  the  clumsiness  of  treatment  by  others.  Their 
power  of  deception  is  sometimes  incredible.  Indeed,  this  is  sometimes 
their  only  weapon  in  the  struggle  for  existence.     Their  tenacity  in 

'  Liige.  Rein's  Encyklopadisches  Handbuch  d.  Padago^jik,  i8<)7,  vt>l.  4,  pp. 
601-616. 

'  L' Evolution  intcHcctuelle  ct  morale  de  renfant.  Ha<httif,  Paris,  i8<)^,  p. 
30Q  et  srq. 

*  Bernard  Pert/,  L'<klucation  morale  d^  le  U-rci-au,  2<1  cd.     Bailliirc.  Paris, 
1888,  jao  p. 
20 


386  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

their  lies  may  be  great.  Pedagogically  the  teacher  must  know  some- 
thing of  the  genesis  of  the  He.  Obscurity  of  ideas,  high-sounding 
phrases,  pretenses,  jeopardize  pure  love  of  truth.  All  children  need 
persistent  training  to  and  for  it. 

Many  think  that,  as  Tacitus  said  of  the  ancient  Germans,  good 
customs  do  more  for  children  than  laws  do.  Some  believe  that  per- 
haps the  chief  task  of  the  teacher  is  to  enforce  and  evoke  truthful- 
ness, even  at  the  expense  of  fantasy  which  often  obscures  the  feeling 
for  truth,  perhaps  most  of  all  at  the  age  of  from  eight  to  eleven. 
Liars  often  have  extremely  acute  intelligence  and  may  lie  from  a  vir- 
tuous motive;  but  usually  lies  are  to  win  more  respect  and  esteem,  to 
cover  vice,  to  increase  pleasure.  Great  and  little  lies  must  be  alike 
condemned.  The  child's  fancy  is  like  the  adult's  dream.  G.  Lehne  ^ 
deplores  the  fact  that  for  years  his  daily  playmate  was  a  fancied  Herr 
Luft.  He  was  so  real  that  he  used  to  set  a  chair  for  him  at  the 
table;  but  he  regards  the  nascent  period  of  fantasy  as  dangerous. 
He  would  restrict  even  the  use  of  Marchen,  but  not  quite  banish 
them  and  takes  issue  with  Rein  in  this  respect.  Teacher  and  pupils 
would  not  live  in  hostile  camps  if  there  was  complete  trust  and  the  lie 
of  fear  could  be  abolished.  Indeed,  just  the  punishment  for  real 
faults  might  come  to  have  something  attractive  about  it  to  pupils  of  a 
highly  developed  sense  of  justice.  A  lie  to  get  things  is  perhaps 
worse  than  one  to  avoid  punishment;  and  envy  and  jealousy  are  bad 
motives.  The  teacher  should  cultivate  the  nimbus  of  infallibility; 
should  always  keep  his  promises;  should  show  in  all  his  teaching, 
whether  religious  or  scientific,  a  profound  love  of  truth ;  should  avoid 
casuistry  and  cultivate  a  strong  passion  for  truth.  Rhetorical  arts 
are  often  injurious.  Perhaps  the  greatest  punishment  for  a  lie  is 
discovery  and  its  consequent  shame  and  the  failure  to  secure  the 
result  aimed  at.  To  make  headway  against  the  lying  habit  with 
the  young  we  must  under  no  conditions  accept  any  form  of  the 
doctrine  that  the  end  justifies  the  means.  Never  alter  the  truth 
for  any  cause  whatever,  and  do  not  pretend  to  know  when  you  do 
not,  should  be  school  mottoes.  Children  have  an  exquisite  sense 
for  detecting  the  lies  in  their  social  environment,  and  these  are  very 
corrupting. 

But  these  rather  obvious  and  slightly  platitudinous  precepts  are 
not  enough  and  the  time  for  regarding  them  as  finalities  is  surely  now 
past.  Too  exiguous  insistence  upon  literal  and  inerrant  veracity  is 
not  without  grave  dangers  of  moral  finickiness  and  superficiality. 
As  with  most  ethical  ends,  the  best  methods  to  attain  them  are  in- 
direct; and  teachers  who  exhort  to  truthfulness,  set  the  best  ex- 
amples of  it,  and  condemn  all  forms  of  lying — and  no  more  than  this 
— are  crude  amateurs  in  this  field  and  indeed,  should  be  condemned 
as  remiss  if  they  do  no  more. 

'  Wie  kann  der  Lehrer  die  Liigenhaftigkeit  der  Jugend  bekampfen.  Die 
Kinderfehler,  1902,  vol.  7,  pp.  58-74. 


CHILDREN'S    LIES  387 

Demoor,  in  his  admirable  treatise  ^  thinks  that  muscle  train- 
ing is  the  most  effective  means  not  only  of  developing  the  brain 
power,  but  of  cultivating  honesty.  He  would  have  liars  ex- 
cluded from  school,  like  those  suffering  from  nervous  or  con- 
tagious diseases,  and  would  form  special  classes  for  all  those 
who  cannot  be  subjected  to  the  ordinary  educational  method 
but  need  special  treatment.  An  active  life,  a  richly  furnished 
field  of  knowledge,  full  of  things  of  absorbing  interest  that 
stimuluate  observation  so  that  children  are  provided  and  will 
not  have  to  fabricate  experiences  in  order  to  get  psychic  room 
to  live  in — these  will  act  as  wholesome  food  does  in  reducing 
the  propensity  to  have  recourse  to  strong  drink.  Besides  facts 
and  science  there  must  be  plenty  of  good  fiction,  poetry, 
romance,  myth,  to  feed  the  imagination  in  a  legitimate  way. 
The  child  must  have  access  to  an  ideal  world  or  its  soul  is 
smoldered  and  atrophied  unless  it  can  invent  such  a  world 
of  its  own.  Life  about  and  in  the  child  should  teem  with 
interests  and  not  be  void  of  excitements.  Hence  a  juiceless 
curriculum,  a  prosaic  diet  of  dead  facts  and  deader  rules  and 
laws,  monotonous  drill,  zestless,  enforced  drudgery,  to  escape 
which  there  are  so  many  licensed  but  dishonest  ways  among 
children,  crude  teaching  about  the  obligation  of  truthfulness 
that  bottles  up  the  fancy — these  are  direct  provocatives  of  sev- 
eral of  the  different  modes  of  lying.  Finally,  as  the  worst  lies 
are  to  conceal  faults,  bad  habits,  perhaps  vices,  so  that  they 
may  grow  rankly  in  secret,  everything  that  tends  to  prevent  or 
eradicate  such  moral  defects  so  that  there  is  nothing  which 
needs  concealment,  helps;  so  does  the  gratification  of  every 
legitimate  wish,  to  forbid  which  is  often  a  temptation  to  secret 
indulgence.- 

'  Jean  Demoor:  Die  abnormalcn  Kinder  und  ihrc  crziehliche  BchandlunR  in 
Haus  und  Schule.     Ikindc,  AUenburg,  190 1,  292  p. 

'  Beitrage  zur  Kenntnis  und  Kasuistik  des  Pseudologia  phantastica  von  Anna 
Stemmcrmann.    AUg.  Zcit.  f.  Psychiatric,  1907,  vol.  64,  pp.  69-1 10. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE    PEDAGOGY    OF    SEX 

The  vast  body  of  sex  thought  in  folklore  and  how  it  permeates  the  ages 
to  our  children — The  new  epoch  in  sex  psychology  and  pedagogy  in 
Freud  and  the  Mannheim  Conference — The  movement  in  Germany 
in  literature,  society,  and  the  schools — Other  countries — Progressive 
sterility  of  the  Occidental  nations — New  radical  theories  of  sex  and 
family  life — Use  of  the  disease  factor  in  sex  pedagogy — Latest  esti- 
mates as  to  the  prevalence  of  these  diseases  in  our  land  and  others 
— The  new  duty  of  physicians — The  place  of  eugenics  in  pedagogy — 
New  views  and  theories  of  human  breeding — Heredity — Stirpiculture 
— The  new  movement  in  keeping  and  studying  pedigrees — Special 
pedagogy  of  sex  before  puberty  with  special  reference  to  the  Freud 
school — Relations  of  love  and  sex — The  great  strain  of  sex  eclair- 
cissement,  especially  for  delicate  girls — Periodicity — Difference  be- 
tween sexes — The  pedagogy  of  self-abuse — Nocturnal  experiences — 
Sex  periodicity  in  young  men — Bachelor  men  and  women  and  race 
suicide — Late  marriages — Nature  of  puberty — Chief  stress  laid  upon 
long-circuiting  and  sublimation — Education  for  wedlock — Origin  and 
function  of  shame — The  psychology  of  pregnancy — Studies  of  one 
hundred  mothers  and  one  hundred  fathers  during  this  period — Defi- 
nition of  good  fatherhood — How  husbands  and  wives  weigh  each 
other  by  new  standards  when  parenthood  approaches — Parturition — 
The  first  sight  and  first  cry  of  the  baby — Nursing — Confessions  of 
representative  mothers. 

V  The  most  difficult,  delicate,  and  at  the  same  time  the  most 

J  important  part  of  moral  education  is  that  which  concerns  sex — 

^   difficult  because  so  complex  and  little  understood,  delicate  be- 

/     cause  the   facts  in  the  field  are  so  concealed  by   reticence, 

f      prudery,  and  lies,  and  important  because  conditioning  the  most 

\  vital  interests  of  the  individual  and  the  future  of  the  race.     In 

the  place  of  the  old  taboo  and  reserve,  recent  years  have  been 

marked  by  a  new  frankness,  candor,  and  openness  of  mind,  and 

by  discussions  more  serious  and  more  competent  than  have 

ever  been  known  in  the  world's  history.     Science  has  shed  a 

flood  of  light  on  the  biological,  physiological,  and  psychological 

388 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  389 

nature  and  manifestations  of  sex.  Sociolo^  Jias-sliOMaiJamy 
it  underlies  national  and  racial  vYml  1""^  pmrpiitnit]-  The 
progressive  sterility  of  all  the  most  highly  civilized  nations  has 
called  startled  attention  to  the  subject  as  perhaps  the  culmina- 
ting aspect  of  the  higher  statecraft.  Other  special  studies 
have  shown  how  urban  life,  in  which  a  constantly  increasing 
proportion  of  the  population  of  all  cultured  lands  lives,  makes 
a  new  and  perilous  situation  for  the  young  and  increases  their 
precocity.  Special  surveys  have  brought  out  the  facts  and 
figures  concerning  the  prevalence  of  both  vicious  practices  and 
of  diseases;  and  school  life  itself  is  found  not  to  be  morally 
hygienic  in  this  respect.  Society  is  slowly  awakening  to  a 
new  consciousness  in  this  new  situation.  The  laws  of  heredity, 
now  well  made  out  in  the  general  field  of  biology,  are  being 
applied  to  man ;  eugenic  journals  and  societies  are  inaugurating 
hopeful  lines  of  practical  endeavor;  and  campaigns  against 
various  aspects  of  the  social  evil,  diseases,  and  the  porno- 
graphic element  in  literature,  art,  and  the  drama  are  being 
waged  in  the  interests  of  the  young.  The  vital  relations  be- 
tween religion  and  sex  are  slowlv  being j:£aiiz£tL-and  purity 
U^BTKtJes  are  becoming  \v\9,er  ^^f\  mr^j-^  {^ffppfri\zp^gQ-iJaai^^>tir 
uncierlymg  moral  concepts  in  this  field-ai£_in  the  process  of 
rapid  transformation  and  enlargement.  , 

Ot  all  the  cultivated  classes  in  tii^ommunity,  educators 
alone  remain  not  only  timid  and  inactive,  but  uninformed  and 
prone  to  the  old  easy  way  of  ignoring  the  facts,  repressing 
discussion,  minimizing  dangers,  and  sometimes  reaffirming  the 
hisses  aller  policy  of  the  old  days  of  ignorance  concerning  the 
dominion  and  p>ervasiveness  of  sex  functions  in  the  psycho- 
physic  constitution  of  man.  ^ext  to  teachers  parents  are 
probably,  in  this  regard,  most  oblivious  ot  facts  and  most 
apathetic  and  recreant  in  their  duties  toward  their  children. 
The  clergy  are  at  last  very  slowly  being  awakened  to  their 
duties  here.  Most  anomalous,  however,  is  the  attitude  of  the 
large  portion  of  the  American  press.  While  many  dailies, 
weeklies,  and  even  monthlies  still  print  quack  advertisements 
that  are  obnoxious  to  morals,  and  give  great  prominence  to 
scandals  and  sensational  and  indecent  divorce  proceedings  that 
are  still  more  corrupting,  some  of  them  exclude  by  explicit 
office  rules  every  report  of  medical  and  scientific  publications. 


390  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

meetings  and  conferences  in  which  this  topic  is  treated  by  ex- 
perts, and  where  the  main  endeavor  is  to  diffuse  wholesome 
facts  which  old  and  young  need  to  know. 

The  world  has  probably  never  known  any  such  universal 
consensus  as  the  present  belief  in  education.  To-day  all 
classes  and  conditions  of  men  in  all  lands  believe  in  schools 
and  teaching  and  acknowledge  that  in  all  fields  knowledge  is 
the  guide  to  successful  living  and  that  ignorance  is  not  only 
a  disgrace  but  a  weakness  and  a  danger.  In  this  one  domain 
of  life  and  in  one  alone — and  that  the  most  important  of  all — 
it  would  almost  seem  as  if  civilized  man  was  afraid  of  knowl- 
edge, laid  a  heavy  ban  upon  instruction  and  deliberately  chose 
darkness  rather  than  light.  Teachers  who  have  the  rarest 
opportunities  to  observe  have  learned  nothing  and  ignore  the 
subject.  Text-books  on  psychology  and  pedagogy  rarely  men- 
tion it,  so  that  our  children  are  generally  educated  as  if  they 
were  of  the  neuter  gender.  The  sex  instinct  is  so  ignored 
that  schoolmistresses  have  been  caricatured  as  regarding  sex 
as  "  an  indiscretion  if  not  a  positive  impropriety  on  the  part 
of  the  Creator."  Meanwhile  the  seeds  of  vice  were  never 
i  sown  so  plentifully.  The  diminution  of  hard  physical  toil  by 
machines,  the  wastrel  life  and  vicious  example  of  the  rich  and 
idle  and  their  gilded  and  usually  degenerate  offspring  as  if 
there  was  a  direct  ratio  between  leisure  and  sexual  vice,  com- 
mon living  rooms  in  the  slums  and  precocity  are  keeping 
armies  of  young  men  from  coming  into  their  birthright  and 
arresting  them  as  underlings  in  the  industrial  world  because, 
as  Mr.  Acher  ^  has  well  shown,  their  vitality  is  burned  out  by 
the  fires  of  lust — all  these  contribute.  Every  modern  expert 
authority,  without  one  exception  that  I  can  find,  agrees  that 
sex  is  the  most  imperious  and  all-pervading  instinct  in  man; 
that  nothing  so  conditions  his  individual  and  social  life ;  that 
it  supplies  the  strongest  motivation  to  attain  eminence,  acquire 
property,  found  a  home;  that  it  makes  art,  science,  altruism, 
moral  and  religious  life  which  cannot  be  understood  without 
knowing  its  primary  and  secondary  qualities.  It  is  strongly 
sexed  men  and  women  in  the  period  of  their  maturity  and 
vigor  that  have  done  most  of  the  great  and  good  work  of  the 

'  The  Psychology,  Pedagogy,  and  Hygiene  of  Sex  Development  (in  press). 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  391 

world  and  done  it  because  they  were  sexed,  since  nothing  in 
the  soul  of  man  is  so  susceptible  of  transformation  or  has 
so  many  higher  psychokinetic  equivalents.  For  this  reason 
nothing  in  us  needs  education  and  guidance  in  this  plastic  nas- 
cent period  so  much  as  this  propensity  which  is  most  of  all 
denied  it. 

We  now  know  that  sex  life  begins  in  infancy  long  before 
it  has  any  localization  in  the  erogenic  zones;  that  its  erethism 
may  be  stimulated  by  the  pacificator  or  stoppered  rubber  nipple 
as  early  as  the  sucking  age ;  that  half  a  dozen  other  forms  of 
what  Moll  calls  "  the  detumescence  instinct  "  may  be  culti- 
vated unawares  before  it  is  directed  toward  or  dependent  upon 
other  persons,  that  is,  before  the  contrectation  stage  unfolds — 
and  this  in  boys  and  girls  alike  before  anything  formerly  called 
sex  makes  its  appearance;  we  know  that  adolescent  males,  a 
large  majority  of  whom  (Cohen  thinks  gs^)  yield  to  some 
form  of  self-abuse,  are  usually  tortured  with  morbid  fears 
that  even  doctors  (since  Tissot,  Lallemand,  Voltaire,  and  the 
anonymous  author  of  "  Onania  "  who  a  century  ago  or  more 
painted  its  effects  in  lurid  colors)  have  too  often  shared  and 
increased,  when  in  fact  not  one  of  the  many  diseases  once 
ascribed  to  this  cause  are  due  to  it,  save  in  those  with  strong 
hereditary  predisposition  toward  these  ailments.  The  psychic 
effects  of  this  vicious  practice  due  to  ignorance  may  be  bad 
enough,  and  psychotherapy  performs  many,  if  not  most,  of  its 
greatest  miracles  by  chirping  up  those  under  this  obsession, 
so  that  it  would  be  relatively  ineffective  but  for  nervous 
scares  due  to  departure  from  conventional  norms.  We  know 
too  that  young  women  suffer  many,  if  not  most,  of  their  ail- 
ments of  body  and  soul  from  perversions,  interdictions  of 
functional  abnormalities  in  this  sphere,  from  all  of  which  early 
and  happy  wedlock  would  absolve  them.  We  understand  as 
never  before  the  physical  and  psychic  evils  of  promiscuity,  also 
the  very  wide  range  of  individual  variations  in  the  vigor  and 
manifestations  of  this  instinct  even  within  the  limits  of  nor- 
mality. For  each  one  of  the  al3ove  views  one  could  easily  cite 
scores  of  experts  agreeing  with  none  dissenting,  and  who  urge 
with  one  accord  that  the  psychological  moment  has  fully  come 
when  the  western  world  must  be  awakened  to  a  renaissance 
both  intellectual  and  moral  in  this  domain. 


392  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

To  realize  how  much  sex  has  occupied  the  minds  of  man- 
kind one  needs  to  be  famihar  only  with  the  thoughts  and 
language  of  sailors,  soldiers,  prisoners,  students,  and  other 
classes  of  men  more  or  less  isolated  from  female  society. 
Under  such  conditions  conversation  often  reeks  with  obscenities 
of  every  sort  almost  as  if  there  was  some  degree  of  sexual 
satisfaction  obtained  in  this  vicarious  way,  or  as  if  enforced 
repression  in  these  conditions  of  life  overflowed  into  coarseness 
of  speech.  One  needs  also  to  scan  the  history  and  literature 
of  decadent  races  in  the  stages  of  national  decline  or  certain 
contemporary  plays  during  corrupt  periods.  Sodom,  Babylon, 
Pompeii,  the  later  Roman  Empire,  became  very  corrupt,  and 
so  their  literature  and  art  abound  in  shamelessness  of  a  kind 
that  shocks  modern  ideas  of  decency.  These  things  show  at 
least  how  central  sex  may  become  in  human  consciousness. 
Moreover,  we  have  now  several  systematic  collections  of  folk- 
lore, customs,  etc.,^  that  show  that  to-day  in  many,  if  not  most, 
countries  at  least  of  continental  Europe,  there  is  an  extended 
body  of  oral  and  sometimes  written  tradition  so  rank  that  it 
would  in  some  lands  to-day  be  a  crime  to  print  and  circulate 
it.  This  matter,  much  of  it,  is  of  great  age,  having  lived  for 
countless  generations  from  mouth  to  ear,  for  much  was  never 
printed  before — this  at  least  we  infer  from  the  close  similarity 
of  many  of  the  ancient  and  modern  data.  Thus  its  persistence 
and  currency  almost  parallels  that  of  speech  itself.  Its 
copiousness  and  variety  is  amazing.  There  are  erotic  lexicons 
and  idiotica  showing  how  very  numerous  are  the  terms  for 
every  part,  act,  aspect  and  relation  of  the  vita  sexiialis.  There 
is  often  a  rather  surprising  ingenuity  in  the  construction  of 
these  usually  quintessentially  slangy  vocabularies.  There  are 
very  studied  riddles,  acrostics,  anagrams,  puzzles  and  poems 
ranging  all  the  way  from  vulgar  doggerel  to  more  or  less 
belabored  and  scholarly  poems,  dramas,  tales,  etc.   (cf.  Lord 


'  Anthropophyteia,  Jahrbiicher  fiir  folkloristische  Erhebungen  und  For- 
schungen  zur  Entwicklunggeschichte  der  geschlechtlichen  Moral,  herausgegeben 
von  Dr.  Friedrich  S.  Krauss.  Leipzig,  Deutsche  Verlags-Aktien-Gesellschaft, 
1904-09,  6  vols.  See  also  Beiwerke  zum  Studium  der  Anthropophyteia,  herausge- 
geben von  Dr.  Friedrich  S.  Krauss.  Leipzig,  Deutsche  Verlags-Aktien-Gesell- 
schaft, 1907-09,  3  vols.  See  also  Kruptadia;  recueil  de  documents  pour  servir  k 
r^tude  des  traditions  populaires.    Paris,  Welter,  1883-1907,  11  vols. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  393 

Rochester's  abominable  Sodom  reflecting  the  indescribable  cor- 
ruption of  the  court  of  Charles  the  Second).  There  are 
figures  of  speech,  jests,  jokes,  gibes,  and  every  salacious  form 
of  wit  which  Freud  thinks  in  its  more  original  form  took  its 
departure  from  this  domain.  There  are  fables,  also  pictures, 
generally  rude  and  scrawled  on  walls  and  perhaps  retirades, 
but  sometimes  executed  with  much  artistic  skill,  symbols  in 
w^hich  this  kind  of  psychosis  is  very  prolific,  yarns  and  contes 
that  would  put  Boccaccio  to  shame,  aedoeological  designations 
grossly  used,  and  suggestions  that  besmirch  everything.  In 
this  inexhaustible  mine,  too,  we  find  erotic  dances,  a  field 
where  invention  has  a  very  wide  scope  which  it  has  made  the 
most  of  and  which,  when  taken  together  with  seductive 
gestures  and  dress,  make  an  important  addition  to  every 
allumcuse  agency.  Moreover,  there  are  coins  that  have  to  be 
secluded  from  modern  numismatic  collections,  tattooing  where 
the  human  skin  itself  has  been  used  as  parchment  to  inscribe 
almost  everything  that  is  gross — these  things  have  been  spun 
about  every  part  of  every  organ — normal  and  abnormal — every 
stage,  posture,  aspect,  condition  and  circumstance  of  sexual 
activity  itself  and  every  age  of  life.  Such  topics  as 
menstruation,  virginity,  pregnancy,  temptation,  and  even  in- 
cest, perversions,  every  unnatural  practice,  pomology,  sex 
diseases,  abortions,  preventives,  even  anatomical  abnormalities 
and  peculiarities  are  made  the  nuclei  of  accretions,  new  and 
old,  almost  always  treated,  too,  which  is  perhaps  worst  of  all, 
in  a  cynical  and  sometimes  more  or  less  jocular  way.  Not 
only  sex  but  excremental  functions  also  come  in  for  tlieir  own 
large  share  of  attention,  which  bears  witness  to  the  way  in 
which  this  process  impressed  primitive  and  still  affects  modem 
man. 

Thus  all  this  painful  and  all  too  voluminous  section  of 
anthropology  shows  by  unmistakable  documentation  how  close 
sex  has  been,  and  still  is  to  great  groups  and  classes  of  men 
perhaps  the  topic  of  most  absorbing  interest,  occuj)ying  and  in 
a  sense  stimulating  a  vast  amount  of  mentation,  a  theme  of 
perennial  zest,  of  incessant  conversation,  a  kind  of  sinister  folk 
muse,  inspiring  a  low  but  profuse  kind  of  productiveness  as 
well  as  presiding  over  the  transmission  of  story  roots  galore, 
endlessly   varied,   now   refined   and   now   crassified   in    form. 


394  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

Much  of  the  grossest  of  this  stock  material  is  reproduced  in 
sometimes  more,  sometimes  less  sublimated  form  in  club 
anecdotes  or  even  in  the  literature  that  Anthony  Comstock 
burns  by  the  ton.  From  this  point  of  view  again  we  can  real- 
ize how  sex  must  have  been  and  still  is  perhaps  the  chief  apper- 
ception-organ of  no  very  small  proportion  of  mankind.  In- 
deed, it  is  hardly  less  than  startling  to  realize  how  widely 
minds  of  this  type  can  to-day  see  sex  in  everything  and  how 
clever  they  are  in  devising  ways  and  means  of  diffusing  sex 
suggestion  even  over  the  objects  and  processes  of  nature  and 
all  the  leading  activities  of  human  life  no  matter  how  remote 
from  it.  It  is  a  remnant  of  the  same  psychosis  that  produced 
the  old  phallic  religions. 

Now  this  material  percolates  through  all  ages  and  strata  of 
society  as  by  constant  seepage.  From  it  come  the  obscenities 
that  it  is  so  impossible  to  eliminate  from  the  environment  and 
the  lives  of  our  children  to-day  on  the  streets,  in  the  schools,  and 
back  alleys.  Its  virus  may  be  more  or  less  attenuated,  and  it 
affects  some  individuals  more  and  some  less  acutely.  Even 
worse,  probably,  than  the  smutty  words  and  images  themselves, 
are  the  spirit  and  attitude,  that  come  from  this  old  prehistoric 
source,  of  levity  in  considering,  and  disrespect  toward,  the 
organs  and  functions  connected  with  the  sacred  office  of  trans- 
mitting human  life.  This  ancient  lore  is  rank  with  contempt 
for  woman,  body  and  soul,  and  with  gross  misrepresentations 
of  her  very  nature.  Nearly  all  of  it  represents  her  as  at  heart 
sensual,  passionate  and  lustful,  but  hypocritical,  always  ready 
to  be  false  to  any  view  or  duty  if  opportunity  offers,  vying  with 
man  in  bestiality  but,  unlike  him,  past  master  in  all  the  arts 
of  ruse,  deception,  simulation,  dissimulation,  and  conventional 
propriety.  If  these  disguises  and  pretenses  can  be  broken 
through  and  with  safety  and  security  from  exposure,  she  is 
represented  as  usually  ready  to  abandon  herself  to  any  degree 
or  any  kind  of  excess.  It  is  this  idea,  then,  that  is  one  of  the 
now  most  corrupting  derivatives  of  this  noxious,  teeming  mass 
of  folk  tradition  that  has  survived  from  the  worst  ages  of  the 
worst  nations  of  ancient  and  modern  times  and  which  is  passed 
on  to  our  children  to-day  in  direct  line  of  continuity  and  com- 
munion with  the  most  corrupt  heathen  and  pagan  races,  to 
whose  smut-lore  our  offspring  are  now  exposed  by  contagion 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  395 

from  their  play-  and  school-mates.  It  is  absorbed  because 
they  are  in  the  same  developmental  stage  in  which  it  grew  and 
throve  in  the  race,  each  chief  epoch  and  feature  of  which  they 
therefore  tend  so  strongly  to  repeat,  at  least  in  petto.  They 
are  happily  usually,  at  least  on  their  first  exposure  to  it,  inno- 
cent and  naive.  To  prevent  them  from  sinking  too  deep  into 
this  quagmire  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  tasks  to-day.  The 
virtue  of  a  young  boy  is  thus  by  these  antique  hereditary  asso- 
ciations closely  bound  up  with  this  respect  for  the  female  sex. 
And  it  is  precisely  here  that  current  vulgar  sex  lore  soaks  in 
through  the  associations  of  middle  and  later  adolescent  years 
and  gets  in  its  most  effective  work  of  subtle  disenchantment 
and  depreciation  of  the  best  things  in  woman. 

But  corrupting  as  this  now  is  morally,  its  very  devil's- 
dreck  is  also  extremely  instructive  scientifically  because  it 
shows  us  how  possible,  if  not  inevitable,  it  was  for  mankind 
at  a  yet  more  primitive  and  naive  stage  of  its  development 
than  history  records  to  sexify  everything  in  nature  and  in  the 
whole  domain  of  human  experience.  What  we  have  con- 
sidered above  is  the  detritus  of  a  great  movement  upward 
which  decent  men  and  races  have  achieved  by  suppression  and 
sublimation.  The  better  ethical  consensus  of  man  has  long 
tabooed  all  this  and  striven  to  eliminate  and  purify  the  proc- 
esses of  reproduction  by  higher  esoteric  interpretation  and  by 
spiritualizing  the  master  passion  of  love.  Religion,  especially, 
as  well  as  civilization,  knowledge,  the  arts  and  social  institu- 
tions have  perhaps  not  infrequently  made  their  very  best  con- 
tributions toward  this  end,  which  generally  needs  supreme 
endeavor.  Thus  these  things  are  the  gold  of  which  tiie  old 
grossness  is  the  dross — the  one  the  food,  the  other  the  garbage, 
of  culture. 

But  spiritualization  is  hard,  and  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  are 
the  most  formidable  of  all  man's  foes.  The  struggle  has  been 
long  and  bitter.  Perhaps,  although  its  traces  are  so  largely 
eliminated  and  have  to  be  reconstructed  from  fragments,  it  has 
l:)een  the  greatest  of  all  the  achievements  of  culture  history. 
Within  recorded  ages  it  has  made  ascetics  and  celibates  out  of 
virile  men  who  throbbed  and  tingled  with  passion,  but  fought 
Apollyon  through  it  all  to  victory.  By  struggles,  vows,  pray- 
ers, falling  and  rising  again,  defeats  and  victories,  the  various 


396  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

rites,  regimens,  ceremonies,  flagellations,  pilgrimages,  self- 
mutilations  and  even  castrations,  in  this  field,  as  it  is  now  being 
reconstructed  from  so  many  scattered  and  fragmentary 
sources,  man  has  for  untold  ages  toiled,  struggled,  fought  and 
battled  with  his  desire  and  yearned  and  striven  upward. 
Probably  not  even  his  long  conflict  with  higher  animals  in 
some  Troglodyte  stage,  when  it  long  seemed  doubtful  whether 
he  or  they  would  be  lords  of  creation,  has  left  so  many  marks 
and  traces  of  its  severity  upon  his  nature  as  this.  Indeed, 
there  is  something  not  only  mysterious,  but  sublime  in  con- 
templating the  history  of  a  creature  who  was  thus  dowered 
with  a  body  of  death  and  a  soul  of  light  and  who  was  always 
lapsing  but  always  starting  on  again  and  through  long  ages 
making  a  little  advance,  but  at  terrific  cost,  since  all  the  stirps, 
tribes,  and  nations  that  have  perished  from  the  world  have 
done  so  because  they  failed  to  solve  hygienically  aright  the 
great  problem  of  sex,  or  how  most  effectively  to  transmit  life. 
Surely,  man  must  have  had  at  the  very  core  of  his  being  some 
potent  but  benign  nisus  that  impelled,  at  least  the  chosen  rem- 
nants of  his  race,  to  forge  up  this  stony  and  laborious  way  of 
the  cross.  We  all  of  us  and  perhaps  especially  women,  but 
most  of  all  those  of  them  who  have  not  completed  the  highest 
stages  of  human  development,  carry  in  our  natures  the  me- 
mentos of  this  struggle  in  the  form  of  lurking  anxieties  liable 
to  emerge  upon  occasion  and  becloud  and  perhaps  often  dismal- 
ize  life  into  multiform  types  of  neuroses  and  hysterics. 

Now,  it  is  into  this  great  conflict  that  the  child  enters  long 
before  he  is  aware ;  indeed,  inhibition  perhaps  begins  with  the 
first  reproof  for  interest  in  the  organs  of  sex  and  the  processes 
of  elimination  from  the  body  of  both  kinds  in  which,  true  to 
the  tendency  of  ontogeny  to  repeat  phylogeny,  there  is  a 
stage  and  phase  of  intense  curiosity  and  interest.  From  this 
stage  of  racial  history,  developed  scatological  rites,  ceremonies 
and  religious  superstitions;  and  we  have  here  the  cunabulum 
of  various  other  apperception-organs,  without  which  many 
themes  in  mythology  cannot  be  understood.  Perhaps  it  began 
still  earlier  by  attempting  to  evoke  a  sense  of  shame  and 
modesty  in  the  child  concerning  his  own  nudity  which,  by  a 
law  of  nature,  he  has  periods  of  desiring  by  a  very  strong 
instinct  animated  by  a  very  ancient  momentum.     And  thus 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  397 

the  child  is  launched  upon  the  long  process  of  repeating  the 
greatest  psychophysic  strain  to  which  man  was  ever  subjected 
in  the  subordination  of  elements  directly  or  indirectly  con- 
nected with  sex  to  higher  powers  of  control.  Afar  down  in 
the  soul  where  consciousness  will  perhaps  never  penetrate,  the 
reverberations  of  this  old  warfare  rack,  toss,  and  perhaps  al- 
most tear  the  soul  asunder.  Many  psychic  and  physical  factors 
now  not  recognized  as  sexual  were  so  once,  and  it  is  especially 
this  that  seems  by  a  very  interesting  and  yet  to  be  studied 
law  in  process  of  gradual  elimination  by  coming  ever  earlier 
in  the  life  history  of  the  individual.  Some  were  once  pri- 
marily, others  perhaps  secondarily,  sexual  in  their  nature. 
What  mature  person  who  has  the  very  rare  power  of  remem- 
bering his  own  experience  when  life  was  hottest,  or  who  has 
enjoyed  for  years  close  intimacy  with  many  young  men  of 
sedentary  or  student  classes,  has  not  acquired  a  profound  sense 
of  what  a  storm  and  stress  many,  if  not  most,  of  them  must 
now  pass  through  as  conscience  and  reason  struggle  with  sense 
for  the  control  of  their  lives,  and  when  the  imagination  is 
haunted  with  visions  of  Walpurgis  night  scenes  that  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  exorcise. 

In  view  of  this  situation,  it  seems  best,  before  setting  forth 
the  pedagogy  of  sex,  to  enumerate  briefly  some  of  the  new 
movements  in  the  field,  that  we  may  realize  how  serious,  com- 
petent, and  widespread  is  the  present  campaign  for  the  sexual 
betterment  of  the  rising  generation  and  how  grave  is  the  pres- 
ent need.  We  begin  with  Gcj^^i^m^,  where  most  has  been 
done  and  where  long  ago  pedagogues  like  Salzmann.  Basedow, 
and  others,  like  l^y^ss(^au,  in  ^''pncc^_d£mamk^i^^a;»ia^l£iiCa 
tion  in  srhonl-  Several  rnmprehensivp  surveys  had  shown  an 
alarming  prevalence  not  only  of  sexual  immorality  among 
youth,  but  of  disease.  A  large  and  influential  society  was 
founded  which  publishes  a  journal,  now  in  its  eighth  year.^ 
The  third  congress  of  this  society  held  in  Mannlieim,  May, 
1907,  was  devoted  solely  to  sex  pedagogy  where  the  cultus 
ministers  of  Prussia  and  Bavaria  were  represented  and  the 
quality  and  number  of  attendance  and  the  interest  shown  ex- 

•  Zeitsrhrift  fUr  Bckiimpfung  dcr   Gcschlechtskrankhiiti-n,  tdittti  l>y  Dr.  A. 
Blaschko.     Barth,  Leipzig,  1903  to  Hate. 


398  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ceeded  all  expectation.  There  were  nineteen  papers  presented 
by  eminent  physicians,  educators,  and  others,  many  of  which 
were  discussed,  and  the  entire  proceedings  are  printed  in  a 
stately  volume  of  321  pages.^  Among  the  chief  topics  were 
sexual  instruction  in  home  and  school,  the  nature  of  the  sexual 
awakening  in  adolescent  youth,  sexual  dietetics,  instruction  of 
teachers  and  parents,  etc.  The  clearest  and  most  unanimous 
result  of  the  congress  was  a  deepening  sense  of  the  all-condi- 
tioning importance  of  normal  sexual  life  for  racial  permanence, 
national  growth  and  prosperity,  and  for  both  personal  and  pub- 
lic hygiene  as  well  as  for  morals  and  religion.  The  magnitude 
and  complexity  of  the  subject,  the  need  of  coordinating  the 
now  too  isolated  and  partial  view  point  of  physicians,  students 
of  eugenics  or  stirpiculture,  the  home,  school,  church,  etc.,  so 
that  the  pooling  of  present  knowledge  and  methods  of  meeting 
the  evil  and  the  practical  getting  together  of  all  the  agencies 
from  purity  societies  to  medical  experts  in  venereal  diseases, 
those  interested  in  legislation  to  control  prostitution  and  those 
who  study  reproduction  from  the  biological,  selectional,  and 
psychological  point  of  view,  was  profoundly  realized.  There 
was  a  deep  sense  of  the  growing  magnitude  of  all  the  evils 
and  the  dangers  now  impending  with  the  rapid  increase  of 
urban  life  and  with  the  extremes  of  poverty  and  luxury,  and 
a  sense  that  more  must  be  done  at  once  and  in  the  schools, 
despite  the  fact  that  the  pedagogy  of  the  subject  is  still  unde- 
veloped. 

There  was  great  diversity  of  opinion,  however,  con- 
cerning just  when  to  begin,  what  to  teach  at  first  and  last,  how 
to  teach,  who  should  teach  and  how  far  to  go.  Not  a  voice 
dissented  from  the  conviction  that  something  must  be  done 
without  delay  for  upper  secondary  school  classes  and  for 
academic  youth.  All  agreed,  too,  that  some  instruction  ought 
to  be  given  early  and  in  the  home,  although  it  was  generally 
granted  that  the  vast  majority  of  parents  could  not  or  would 
not  perform  this  duty  and  that  they  must  be  taught  where 
possible,  and  that  at  all  events  this  theme  should  be  made  an 
integral  part  of  the  course  of  study  in  all  normal  schools. 


'  Eongress  der  deutschen  Gesellschaft  zur  Bekampfung  der  Geschlechtskrank- 
heiten,  Sexualpadagogik.     Barth,  Leipzig,  1907,  321  p. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  399 

Fear  was  often  expressed  that  physicians  with  their  terrihle 
array  of  the  statistics  of  vice  and  their. horrihle  portrayals  of 
diseases  would  be  liable  to  excite  morbid  fears  and  also  that 
they  lacked  knowledge  or  appreciation  of  the  delicate  normal 
processes  of  sex  eclaircisscment  in  the  pubescent  and  adoles- 
cent soul  and  could  not  appeal  sufficiently  to  the  potent  factor 
of  honor,  shame,  personal  and  moral  responsibility  to  self, 
society,  and  posterity,  the  sense  of  duty  and  the  need  of 
strengthening  the  will  and  the  powers  of  choice.  Yet  nearly 
all  members  wanted  the  physician's  authoritative  voice  heard 
by  all  boys  at  least  in  the  later  teens,  and  not  a  few  would 
supplement  his  teachings  by  other  agencies,  and  still  more 
demanded  that  girls  be  taught  by  women  physicians.  All 
that  shocked,  caused  depressive  discouragement,  loss  of 
self-respect  or  courage  as  sex  fanatics  often  do  in  their 
allusions  to  self-abuse,  all  characterization  of  perversions 
and  unnatural  practices,  lurid  descriptions  of  the  results  of 
onanism  (often  worse  than  the  vice  itself),  and  all  detailed 
descriptions  of  diseases  or  too  suggestive  and  objective 
illustrations  of  sexual  processes  or  organs  and,  above  all, 
premature  enlightenment  before  the  age  of  curiosity  and 
understanding,  were  deprecated;  and  forcing  this  kind  of 
knowledge  upon  the  immature,  undeveloped  souls  was  com- 
pared to  forcible  defloration  which  makes  directly  for  pre- 
cocity. We  must  follow  natural  interest  and  curiosity, 
giving  just  what  is  wanted  or  needed  at  each  stage  and  no 
more;  and  to  that  end  we  must  study  more  carefully  just  how 
and  in  what  order  the  long,  complex  processes  of  sex  illumi- 
nation occur.  Several  essayists  laid  great  stress  on  beginning 
early  with  the  fertilization  of  plants  and  proceeding  gradually 
to  the  lower  animals  and  making  the  first  stages  of  instruction 
incidental  to  biological  teaching  which  should  be  more  taught 
in  general  for  the  sake  of  the  opportunity  it  affords  to  teach 
sex  indirectly,  and  thought  that  even  in  normal  schools  this 
topic  should  be  only  one  chapter  in  general  hygiene  and  stand 
beside  such  themes  as  alcohol,  tuberculosis.  Ixxly-kccpiiig  and 
good  habits  generally.  Sex  Aufkl'dnmg  to  bo  compk-tc  must 
have  not  only  a  scientific,  physiological,  prophylactic,  but  an 
ethical  and  religious  side,  and  teach  the  nature  and  sanctity  of 
marriage,  the  family  and  all  its  relations  to  natural  selection 


400  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

and  its  irradiations  into  the  positive  form  of  art  and  idealism, 
along  with  its  negative  side  of  censure  and  punishment  which 
reprobates  all  nastiness  or  suggestiveness  of  word  or  act — all 
these  are  needed.  School  work  in  this  field  should  advance 
slowly  enough  to  go  surely,  for  extremes  might  only  cause  a 
revulsion  of  public  sentiment  against  the  topic,  and  a  retreat 
after  a  fair  beginning  would  be  disastrous.  One  speaker 
urged  the  importance  of  a  carefully  prepared  canon  of  reading 
for  adolescents  which  should  contain  some  healthful  love 
poems  and  stories  that  presented  the  tender  passion  at  the 
right  age  in  a  pure,  ideal  and  heroic  way,  holding  that  this 
would  be  a  corrective  both  of  the  gushy  sentimentality  to 
which  girls  are  liable  and  the  grossness  of  boys  and  would  fill 
the  fancy  and  imagination  with  noble  images  and  would  thus 
tend  to  counteract  the  evil.  It  was  urged  that  there  should  be 
some  sex  differentiation  in  all  lists  of  books  advised  for  boys 
and  girls  and  several  called  for  concise  booklets  and  pamphlets 
on  sex  for  youth  of  a  kind  which  do  not  yet  exist.  There 
were  many  reports  of  lecture  courses  given  in  the  schools  of 
different  cities  and  all  without  exception  had  been  welcomed 
by  pupils,  and  commended  by  parents  and  teachers.  While 
instinct  guides  animals  aright,  man  needs  not  only  the  awaken- 
ing of  sympathy  and  feeling  of  charity,  but  especially  every- 
thing that  strengthens  the  will,  for  only  it  can  make  instruction 
or  high  ideals  of  any  worth.  Hence  everything  that  stim- 
ulates volition  (for  if  it  is  weak,  life  grows  dull),  or  that 
hardens  resolve  to  oppose  sense  and  passion  should  have  about 
the  first  place  of  all  in  a  comprehensive  scheme  of  sex  peda- 
gogy. If  this  subject  is  isolated  too  much  there  is  always 
danger  of  stimulating  this  instinct,  if  the  intellect  is  chiefly 
addressed.  Hence  character  building,  which  involves  firm 
convictions  and  settled  habits  of  thought,  feeling  and  will,  is 
in  general  the  surest  prophylactic.  Hints  have  their  place  at 
the  right  moment  and  a  very  important  one,  but  are  not 
sufficient.  The  hardening  of  the  body  is  indispensable  and 
every  kind  of  physical  exercise  and  active  objective  life  helps. 

Other  points  discussed  were  whether  in  gymnasia  the  instruction 
should  be  given  in  ober  secunda,  unter  prima  or  to  those  about  to 
graduate  only;  whether  parents  should  be  asked,  told,  or  permitted 
to  attend  if  they  wished  to;  or  whether  their  permission  should  be 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  401 

asked;  whether  the  teaching  should  be  after  school  hours  or  com- 
pulsory ;  whether  the  regular  teachers  should  be  consulted ;  whether 
any  stage  of  instruction  should  be  thorough,  systematic,  and  examined 
on  or  only  sketchy.  Most  thought  great  stress  should  be  laid  on  the 
sense  of  duty  and  the  function  of  choice,  that  little  reference  was 
necessary  to  the  sex  act  itself  or  to  precautions  against  contagion,  to 
the  needs  of  promptly  consulting  physicians  on  occasion,  to  the  de- 
tailed accounts  of  disease,  that  parents  should  not  be  present,  that 
male  physicians  should  not  teach  girls  (an  experiment  tried  by 
Heidenhain  at  Steglitz,  but  later  forbidden),  and  that  the  widespread 
error  that  use  of  the  function  was  needful  to  its  conservation  should 
be  combated.  It  was  brought  out  that  teaching  had  been  officially 
authorized  upon  this  subject  in  the  high  schools  of  Switzerland  with 
excellent  results,  that  young  male  teachers  beginning  their  duties  in 
great  cities  are  in  great  danger  of  contamination  themselves,  that 
(as  Blaschko's  statistics  show)  university  students  in  Germany  led  all 
other  classes  in  the  percentage  of  venereal  disease,  that  at  the  uni- 
versity of  Bonn  attendance  upon  instruction  on  this  subject  was 
required  of  all  the  members  of  the  philological  seminary,  which  is  the 
nursery  of  teachers  of  the  ancient  languages. 

The  Natural  History  Conference  held  at  Stuttgart  a  little  later 
in  1906  authorized  a  memorandum  advising  that  instruction  on  this 
subject  in  school  be  general  rather  than  detailed  and  come  near  the 
close  of  the  school  period.  It  is  feared  that  the  imagination  of  the 
innocent  will  be  injured  by  much  class  instruction.  Leaflets,  how- 
ever, are  recommended  which  can  be  utilized  together  with  instruc- 
tion for  those  individuals  whom  teachers  deem  in  need  of  it.  This 
instruction  should  not  be  very  detailed  but  should  (a)  emphasize  the 
importance  of  procreation  for  the  welfare  of  posterity  and  should  be 
made  a  matter  of  high  ethical  responsibility;  (b)  it  should  teach  that 
indulgence  is  by  no  means  a  physiological  necessity  but  that  large 
numbers  of  the  greatest  and  best  men  have  abstained  during  their 
lifetime  without  injury.  The  dangers,  too,  of  extra-marital  relations 
should  be  taught.  The  peril  of  illicit  relations  for  morals  and  for 
health  and  the  nature  of  the  two  chief  diseases  should  be  inculcated.' 
The  great  majority  do  not  know  how  or  what  to  teach.     For  such  a 

'  A.  Forel:  Die  st-xuelle  Frage.     Reinhardt,  Miinchen,  1905,  587  p. 

F.  Sielxjrt:  Ein  Burh  fur  Eltcm.     Seitz,  Mumhen,  i(;o3-4,  3  vols. 

H.  Wegener:  Wir  jungen  Miinncr.      I^ngewieschc,  Ix-ipzig,  1006,  216  p. 

Die  Tatigkcit  dcr  Unterrichtskommission  dcr  Gest-llsthafl  dout.sthor  Nafur- 
forsther  und  Arzte,  hrsg.  von  A.  Gutzmer.     Teubncr,  Ix-ipzig,  ujoS,  p.  218  et  seq. 

A.  P'oumicr:  Was  hat  dcr  Vatcr  seincm  iS-jiifirigcn  Sohno  zu  sagrn?  Aus  dcm 
franzosisthcn  iibcrst-tzt  von  Dr.  C.  Ravasini.     Dietz,  Stuttgart,  n;o5,  32  p. 

Bastian  Schmid:  Gedankcn  zursexuellen  Padagogik.  Zt-its.  f.  latcinlosc  hiihcre 
Jkhulen,  1905-06,  vol.  17,  pp.  99-303. 

In  Naturund  Sihulc:  Tcubner,  Leipzig,  1906,  vol.  5:  a.  H.  Most:  Zursexuellen 
Padagogik,  pp.  40-42.  b.  M,  Klcinscbmidt:  Die  scxuciie  Frage  in  der  Krziilmng 
27 


402  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

few  very  brief  manuals  suggesting  methods,  matter  and  gradatio« 
are  now  provided  and  more  are  needed.  I  know  nothing  in  English 
quite  as  good  as  the  following  in  German,  one  or  more  of  which 
should  be  translated.  They  are:  Die  geschlechtliche  Aiifkldrung  in 
Haus  und  Schule,  von  H.  Fiirth;  Eine  I^f utter pflicht,  von  E.  Stiehl; 
and  Beini  Onkel  Doktor  auf  dem  Lande,  von  M.  E.  G.  Oker-BIom. 
Konrad  Holler:  Die  sexuelle  Frage  und  die  Schule,  Leipzig.  See 
also  C.  R.  Henderson:  8th  Year  Book  of  the  National  Society  for 
the  Study  of  Education,  ipop.  Also  Helen  Putnam,  Boston  Medical 
and  Surgical  Journal,  Jan.  21,  1906.  Also  Moll:  Die  sexuelle  Erzieh- 
ung.  Zeitsch.  f.  pad.  Psychol.,  December,  1908.  The  younger  the 
child  the  less  fitting  it  is  to  rely  upon  the  family  physician  or  the 
pastor,  who  is  more  remote  from  the  family  circle. 

-^  Although  instruction  in  sexual  hygiene  is  not  yet  incor- 
porated into  the  official  programme  of  Germany,  Diisseldorf, 
Leipzig,  Dresden,  and  other  cities  have  tried  such  courses  for 
graduating  classes  for  the  Gymnasia, Real  and  Burger  Schulen 
by  carefully  selected  physicians  with  the  best  results,  as  testi- 
fied not  only  by  attendance  but  by  general  expressions  of  deep 
interest  and  profit  from  the  pupils.  So  successful  have  these 
courses  been  that  it  is  now  proposed  to  extend  the  experiments 
to  the  upper  classes  of  the  Volks-Schulen  and  Forthildungs- 

des  Kindes,  pp.  70-78.  c.  F.  Siebert:  Die  sexuelle  Frage  in  die  Erziehung  des 
Kindes,  pp.  150-159. 

Pubertal  und  Schule,  by  A.  Cramer.  Leipzig,  Teubner,  19 10,  16  p.  Also 
Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  by  Havelock  Ellis,  vol.  6,  Sex  in  Relation  to 
Society.  Philadelphia,  T.  A.  Davis,  1910,  656  p.  Also  Das  sexuelle  Problem  und 
seine  modeme  Krise,  von  E.  Mertens.  Munich,  Kupferschmid,  1910,  476  p. 
Also  the  Sexual  Life  of  Woman,  by  E.  Heinrich  Kisch.  Authorized  translation 
into  English  by  M.  Eden  Paul.     New  York,  Rebman  Company,  19 10,  686  p. 

Werkblatt  zur  Handhabung  der  sexuellen  Aufklarung  an  hoheren  Unter- 
richtsanstalten.  Entworfen  von  der  Unterrichtskommission  der  Gesellschaft 
deutscher  Naturforscher  and  Arzte.  Uberreicht  der  78.  Naturforscher  -  Ver- 
sammlung  in  Stuttgart,  1906.  In  Zeitsch.  d.  deutsch-evangelischen  Vereine  z. 
Forderung  der  Sittlichkeit,  15.  Januar,  1908,  22.  Jahrgang,  Nr.  i. 

For  a  typically  radical  method  see  that  of  a  well-known  German  teacher,  Maria 
LischneWska  from  Mannheim  (Die  geschlechtliche  Belehrung  der  Kinder;  zur  Ge- 
schichte  und  Methodik  des  Gedankens.  Mutterschutz,  1905,  vol.  i,  pp.  137-170) 
who  has  composed  a  very  methodic  course  in  sex  instruction  which  begins  in  the 
third  school  year  and  which  starts  from  the  impregnation  of  the  barnyard  fowl, 
which  must  be  presented  in  "  anschauliche  Weise, "  and  exhibits  a  picture  of  the 
child  in  its  mother's  body  "which  every  school  must  have."  In  the  fifth  and 
sixth  school  year  the  process  must  be  presented  in  cattle  and  the  sex  organs  must 
be  exhibited  "  in  simple  drawings, "  and  finally,  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  school  year 
the  process  in  man  must  be  also  presented  object-lessonwise. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  403 

Schulen.  In  Helsingfors  at  the  instigation  of  Dr.  Oker-Blom, 
such  instruction  is  now  given  to  the  upper  classes  in  girls' 
schools  just  before  graduation  by  lady  teachers  especially 
trained  for  that  purpose. 

The  Prussian  Cultus  Minister  has  issued  a  request  for 
information  concerning  the  "  scope  and  kind  of  instruction  on 
sex  given  at  the  present  time  in  schools,  where  and  in  what 
places  it  is  given  and  by  whom."  In  the  returns,  these 
methods  fall  into  three  groups :  ( i )  instruction  based  on 
purely  ethical  grounds  or  upon  the  seventh  commandment;  (2) 
physiological  instruction  (a)  concerning  healthful  sex  life  and 
procreation  and  {b)  morbid  manifestations  of  this  function. 
The  results  of  this  inquiry  which  was  issued  only  in  the  fall 
of  1907  have  not  been  published.^  Meanwhile,  in  some  parts 
of  Germany  beginning  with  Breslau,  since  certain  recent 
charges  against  the  morality  of  the  army,  such  instruction  has 
been  given  to  officers  who  are  thereby  qualified  and  exhorted 
to  pass  the  instruction  on  to  the  soldiers  under  their  command, 
and  the  Prussian  Minister  of  War  has  authorized  such  lectures 
elsewhere.  The  interest  and  advantage  of  these  courses  is 
highly  prized  and  praised  by  the  officers  themselves.  Not 
only  are  the  troops  greatly  profited  and  to  some  extent  safe- 
guarded during  their  term  of  compulsory  service,  which  is  now 
made  as  educative  as  possible  in  this  and  other  ways,  but 
officers  are  exhorted  to  be  teachers  and  to  feel  more  responsible 
for  the  hygiene  and  morals  of  those  under  their  command. 
It  is  stated  that  when  soldiers  now  go  home  they  are  proving 
effective  propagandists  of  better  knowledge,  each  in  his  own 
circle  of  family  and  friends. 

D.  Sarason,  of  Berlin,'  urged  that  nothing  can  exceed  the  im- 
portance of  normalizing  man's  sexual  instinct  which  is  the  basis  of 
iiunian  well-being  and  that  during  the  critical  years  of  youth  this 
kind  of  training  should  take  precedence  of  everything  else.  The 
instinct  that  dominates  this  field  is,  however,  so  imponderable  that 
analytic  methods  of  treating  it  are  dangerous  so  that  its  proper 
pedagogy  must  be  something  quite  unique  without  following  at  all 
the  educative  methods  in  vogue  in  any  of  the  current  courses  of 

•  Zcitsch.  f.  KimJcrforschung,  Oktober,  1907,  p.  28. 

»  Zum  Pn>bli-m  dcr  Scxualbclchrung.  Zclts.  f.  Schulgi-sumlhiitspncgc,  1907, 
vol.  20,  pp.  733-746. 


404  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

public  education.  The  instinct  must  be  treated  not  merely  as  a 
propensity  but  as  containing  the  promise  and  potency  of  most  that 
is  best  in  the  individual  and  social  life  of  man.  Nature  has  screened 
it  with  mystery,  awe,  modesty,  and  if  that  delicate  texture  is  torn 
ruthlessly  away,  then  like  the  unveiled  statue  of  Sais,  horror  is  re- 
vealed, (a)  When  should  instruction  begin?  He  answers  that  in  a 
precautionary  and  negative  way  it  cannot  possibly  begin  too  early, 
for  everything  in  the  life  of  the  youngest  school  child  that  tends 
toward  premature  or  overdevelopment  of  this  part  of  his  nature 
should  be  carefully  prevented.  In  pubescent  years,  instruction  should 
be  only  elementary  and  also  chiefly  preventive  and  sex  dietetics 
should  cover  the  entire  life  of  the  child  and  therefore  be  largely 
out  of  school.  For  parents  to  do  this,  however,  would  require  a 
moral  and  religious  regeneration  of  the  entire  German  people  and 
altruism  and  self-sacrifice  like  that  seen  in  the  sixteenth  and  again 
in  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Now,  however,  we  must 
look  chiefly  to  the  school  and  here  fight  sexual  ignorance  just  as  we 
do  illiteracy,  (b)  Who  shall  give  such  instruction?  For  elementary 
classes  the  teacher  should  be  trained  to  do  so  and  the  physician 
should  be  reserved  for  older  children  and  for  those  leaving  school. 
Every  pupil  in  higher  secondary  institutions  should  be  required  to 
take  such  a  course.  Not  one  should  be  exempt.  Both  instruction 
and  attendance  should  be  legally  obligatory.  Medical  schools  should 
open  brief  lecture  courses  to  train  young  physicians  to  give  such 
instruction  that  the  teaching  be  effectively  and  comprehensively  given 
perhaps  in  relation  to  temperance  and  hygiene,  rest,  fatigue,  work, 
exercise,  food,  sleep,  clothing,  etc.  (c)  How  should  it  be  taught? 
Briefly,  in  connection  with  a  sense  of  honor  and  responsibility  and 
not  as  a  course  apart  and  sui  generis  till  puberty.  The  details  of 
what  to  teach,  how  far,  how,  ought  to  be  discussed  and  determined. 
Hence,  monographs  like  Kraepelin's  should  be  multiplied  and  prizes 
offered  by  members  for  suitable  curricula  and  syllabi. 

In  1905  a  group  of  German  savants  under  the  lead  of 
Helena  Stocker,  Ph.D.,  founded  a  monthly  journal  (Mutter- 
schuts)  to  alleviate  the  state  of  mothers,  married  or  single, 
who  were  in  dire  distress.  They  studied  the  status  of  the 
wives  of  the  poor,  those  with  cruel  or  criminal  husbands,  and 
of  the  unmarried,  who  during  pregnancy  and  in  childbirth 
suffered  physical  and  mental  hardships.  Here  they  found 
under  modern  conditions  some  of  the  saddest  and  most  tragic 
aspects  of  civilization.  As  these  results  proceeded  they  real- 
ized more  and  more  clearly  that  vast  and  complex  legal, 
economic,  social  and  moral  problems  were  involved,  but  they 
also  found  that  all  the  norms  for  all  the  reforms  needed  must 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  405 

be  those  which  spring  from  the  needs  of  the  children  and 
that  even  the  protection  of  the  mothers  must  be  for  the  sake 
of  their  offspring.  Hence  after  three  years  the  focus  of 
their  endeavor  was  changed,  and  in  January,  1908,  the  jour- 
nal took  the  name  of  Die  Neue  Generation,  and  its  scope  was 
enlarged. 

What  is  the  real  programme  of  this  group  of  very  earnest, 
able  and  scholarly  women  and  men  who  thus  boldly  address 
themselves  to  the  profound  and  delicate  task  of  revising  all  the 
relations  involved  in  this  holiest  of  all  functions  of  transmis- 
sion of  human  life?  First  of  all — apologizing  to  these 
German  reformers  that  such  a  statement  is  necessary  in  this 
country — those  responsible  for  this  movement  are  to  the  best 
of  our  knowledge  and  belief  of  the  very  highest  and  most 
stainless  personal  reputation,  according  to  all  the  standards  of 
the  strictest  existing  moral  codes.  No  breath  of  suspicion, 
even  by  their  many  and  bitter  critics,  has  ever  been  suggested 
against  the  purity  of  their  lives,  and  they  would  abhor  no  less, 
if  not  more,  than  their  critics,  anything  approaching  free  love 
in  the  sense  in  which  that  term  is  understood  here.  We  say 
this  at  the  outset  because  of  the  inveterate  tendency  to  suspect 
lurking  apologetic  motives  to  justify  inclinations  for  individ- 
ual indulgence,  present  or  prospective.  Of  the  disinterested 
and  philanthropic  motives  that  animate  this  movement  there 
can  therefore  be  no  question.  In  matters  that  touch  the  human 
heart  perhaps  more  deeply  than  any  other  these  people  strive 
to  maintain  a  cool,  judicial  attitude,  and  to  be  not  only  dis- 
passionate but  almost  academic,  without  having  any  of  the 
aloofness  that  this  term  sometimes  suggests  from  the  hard, 
bitter,  yet  ominous  facts  in  this  field. 

What  are  these?  One  is  that  a  large  proportion  of  health- 
ful women  in  the  child-bearing  age — Dr.  Stocker  says  one  half 
in  Germany — are  now  living  either  in  celibacy  with  all  the 
wifely  and  motherly  instincts  repressed  and  it  may  l>e  per- 
verted, or  in  prostitution,  open  or  clandestine,  or  in  relations 
involving  infraction  of  the  existing  laws  of  marital  fidelity. 
Many  of  them  bear  illegitimate  children  with  all  the  psychic 
pain  and  stigmata  this  now  involves,  or  are  divorced  or  aban- 
doned wives.  This  fact,  they  believe,  justifies  tiicm  in  con- 
cluding that  marriage  as  it  exists  to-day.  and  especially  for 


4o6  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

this  large  and  perhaps  growing-  proportion  of  the  community 
must  be  remodeled  to  fit  Hfe.  The  interests  and  virtue  of 
posterity  are  primarily  concerned  and  yet  inveterate  customs 
and  legal  and  religious  sanctions  of  the  existing  status  of 
wedlock  make  the  community  more  sensitive  to  every  hint  of 
modification  of  this  than  of  any  other  institution  or  relation 
of  life,  fearful  lest  changes  here  would  involve  more  or  less 
concession  to  passion. 

How,  then,  can  this  stupendous  and  delicate  task  best  be 
approached  ?  The  answer  offered  is,  first,  by  a  deepening  and 
refining  of  the  moral  sense  and  making  the  responsibility  in- 
volved in  parenthood  the  supreme  consideration.  We  must 
go  back  of  laws  and  rights  and  ask  what  principles  underlie 
matrimony  and  what  are  the  chief  ends  it  was  established  to 
accomplish.  This  is  summed  up  in  the  phrase  "  responsibility 
to  the  unborn."  This  must  be  the  touchstone  by  which  the 
soundness  of  all  opinions  discussed  and  the  practical  value  of 
all  changes  made  must  be  tested.  Ev^rvjathermust  feel  .and 
exercise  the  fullestre^pnsibility^Jor  his  children  durmg  their 
entire  period  ofjmmaturity.  To  shirkjhjs^  and^specially  to 
throw  it  upon  some  helpless  victim  of  his  passion,  is  the  essence 
of  dishonor  and^scbrmdrefrsm  ftHs~i5ein^'gTra  very  much 

is  assured,  for~iF~wouId  inconceivably  elevate  the  status  of 
sexual  morality.  Again,  woman  must  be  given  an  independ- 
ent financial  status  as  well  as  education,  for  only  when  both 
sexes  are  .thus  matured,  intelligent,  of  like  social  standing  and 
free,  can  the  best  results  be  assured.  They  would,  however, 
have  all  lovers  eroticists  of  the  ideal.  Divorce  should  be  made 
easier  for  those  who  are  mismated.  It  is  inevitable  so  long 
as  marriage  is  so  ill-considered  and  so  often  based  on  passion. 
One  of  the  first  and  surest  signs  of  degeneration  in  a  stirp  or 
race  is  want  of  wisdom  in  choosing  mates ;  and  the  best  sign 
of  the  perpetuity  of  a  race  is  the  unerring  instinct  that  finds 
out  and  cleaves  to  the  right  party  with  true  affinity  of  body 
and  soul;  for  this  alone  is  true  marriage,  because  only  under 
such  conditions  are  the  best  children  produced  and  reared. 
There  may  even  be  conditions  where  unions  have  been  sanc- 
tioned or  unsanctioned  by  the  State  or  Church,  in  which  child- 
birth is  definitely  renounced  in  advance  in  the  interests  of 
posterity ;  but  of  this  little  is  said. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  407 

Thus  this  journal  does  not  scruple  to  discuss  even  the  preventives 
now  used  throughout  the  world,  savage  and  civilized,  and  abortions 
in  both  their  medical  and  social  aspects.  Perhaps  its  chief  sympa- 
thies, however,  are  for  women  who  have  been  deserted,  for  those  who 
are  the  victims  of  midwives  and  quacks,  who  are  infected  by  their 
husbands,  forced  to  bear  too  many  children,  the  incessant  tempta- 
tions to  which  girls  and  young  women  are  exposed.  Indeed,  these 
topics  are  discussed  not  only  by  the  large  and  influential  society 
above  referred  to,  but  they  find  place  now  in  some  German  peda- 
gogical journals  such  as  Die  Neue  dcutsche  Schule  which  has  de- 
veloped one  of  the  sanest  of  all  schemes  of  sex  instruction  in  schools 
and  would  chiefly  stress  purity  and  cleanliness,  would  divine  and 
answer  children's  curiosity  and  particularly  would  strengthen  the 
will  and  invest  the  whole  topic  of  sex  and  reproduction  with  mystery 
and  with  religious  sanctity,  holding  that  the  present  evils  are  due 
more  to  weakness  of  will  and  sense  of  duty  than  to  ignorance.  The 
instinct  of  shame  should  be  especially  guarded. 

The  arts  of  the  temptresses,  the  careers  of  the  great  courtesans 
of  history,  fiction  and  the  drama,  are  studied  for  the  fuller  light 
they  throw  upon  the  social  evil.  To  orphanages  and  homes  for  aban- 
doned children — their  support,  spirit,  etc. — some  space  is  given. 
Obscenity  is  to  be  warred  on  and  banished  as  now;  but  the  nude 
in  high  art  can  perhaps  be  encouraged  in  the  interests  of  morality. 
One  extremist  advocates  occasional  gymnastic  exhibitions  without 
clothes,  where  the  young  people  shall  expose  themselves  naked  to 
the  others  of  their  sex  in  the  interests  of  body  culture.  The  human 
form,  he  holds,  will  thus  be  developed  by  persistent  exercise  and  the 
misshapen  physique  of  the  modern  boy  or  girl  will  be  greatly  im- 
proved. No  one  advocates  trial  marriages ;  but  some  would  have  all 
bachelors  of  means,  beyond  a  certain  age,  if  they  produce  no  ade- 
quate justification  of  their  selfishness  in  remaining  single,  taxed. 
Woman's  industry  in  its  relations  to  maternity  is  a  line  of  active 
agitation.  So,  too,  is  the  method,  matter,  and  age  of  sex  education. 
The  psychology  and  ethics  of  celibacy  and  abstinence  are  discussed, 
and  the  evils  of  the  latter,  particularly  for  women,  are  shown. 
Motherhood  should  be  made  a  vocation,  and  each  girl  should  he  pre- 
pared for  it,  whatever  other  education  she  may  receive.  So  different 
are  men  and  women  that  the  sexes  might  be  called  two  nations  of 
very  diverse  stock  living  together,  but  nevertheless  with  a  good  deal 
of  ignorance  of  each  other.  \Our  present  morality  is  man-made;  and 
woman's  ethical  code  like  her  psychology  is  as  yet  undeveloped.  In 
all  these  fields  the  editors  and  contributors  hold  constantly  before 
themselves  the  "  green  peril  "  which  is  radicalism  in  sex  theories. 

One  department  of  this  journal,  entitled  "  N'otes  of  the  Day"  is 
devoted  to  current  cases  from  the  press,  in  which  wtnurn  have  suf- 
fered, especially  as  revealed  in  courts,  from  the  inhumanity  of  man 
and  from  the  present  double  standards.  Here  scores  of  pathetic 
individual  cases  arc  briefly  recited. 


4o8  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

Another  department  is  devoted  to  the  review  of  novels,  dramas, 
and  other  current  literature,  books,  monographs,  articles,  etc.,  touch- 
ing sex  questions.  Here  the  standard  of  criticism  is  very  liberal  as 
if  from  fear  of  prudery.  In  general,  in  these  pages  it  is  surprising 
to  see  how  teemingly  fecund  the  German  press  now  is  in  literature 
of  this  class. 

When  Mutterschuts  divided,  Die  Neue  Generation  re- 
viewed above  became  an  organ  for  a  society  for  the  protection 
of  motherhood;  and  the  more  scientific  problems  were  rel- 
egated to  another  monthly  journal  of  about  the  same  size 
entitled  Sexuelle  Prohleme,  edited  by  Max  Marcuse,  M.D., 
which  began  in  January,  1908,  and  is  devoted  to  the  science 
and  practical  policy  of  the  vita  sexualis.  Here  sex  questions 
are  discussed  from  a  fundamentally  male  standpoint  and  by 
men,  mainly  physicians;  and  more  stress  is  laid  upon  the 
hygiene  of  marriage,  so  that  the  reformatory  motive  is  perhaps 
rather  less  prominent.  In  these  two  journals  which  have 
bifurcated  from  Mutterschuts,  one  becoming  scientific  and 
masculine,  the  other  feminine,  but  both  devoted  to  the  same 
general  topic,  we  have  a  most  noteworthy  instance  of  observed 
differences  between  the  male  and  the  female  mind  in  method, 
matter,  emphasis,  etc.  In  the  former  journal  we  have  full  dis- 
cussions of  castration,  hermaphroditism,  homosexuality,  and 
other  abnormalities  in  their  legal,  social  and  psychological 
aspects,  incest,  relations  between  nearest  blood  relatives  to 
inbreeding,  exogamy,  and  the  extreme  limits  of  fertility  in 
crossing.  The  nature  of  libido  most  now  hold,  may  not 
only  endure  but  thrive  on  abstinence,  save  in  neurotic  subjects. 
Prostitution,  one  writer  holds,  is  on  the  whole  beneficial  to  the 
community  because  it  either  kills  or  sterilizes  the  unmoral,  the 
immoral,  and  those  precociously  or  abnormally  sexual,  and 
thus  prevents  them  from  contributing  to  the  perpetuity  of  the 
race.  Retardation  of  the  age  of  sex  maturity  is  held  to  be  in 
the  interests  of  progress,  for  it  is  in  the  direction  in  which  the 
race  is  tending.  Nursing  tends  to  postpone  pregnancy  and 
so  increases  the  interval  between  births,  and  thus  in  this  way 
as  well  as  because  mother's  milk  so  greatly  conduces  to  viabil- 
ity makes  for  better  offspring.  Other  topics  discussed  are 
sexual  dreams.  Sadism,  masochism,  medico-legal  cases  involv- 
ing sex  relations,  Jack-the-Ripper  records,  the  psychology  of 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  409 

infanticide,  what  constitutes  being  high  or  low  bred,  the  rela- 
tion of  sexual  disorders  to  hysteria,  consumption,  and  other 
diseases,  the  modes  of  mitigating  syphilis  and  gonorrhea.  All 
girls  should  be  taught  clearly  and  authoritatively  the  hygiene 
of  the  lunar  month,  just  beforehand,  briefly,  and  when  the  first 
experience  comes,  more  fully,  so  that  they  may  avoid  the  errors 
due  to  ignorance  which  are  often  so  costly  to  health  during 
the  often  rather  long  period  of  months  and  occasionally  even 
years  before  the  normal  rhythm  has  been  well  established. 
No  period  of  girlhood  is  so  critical  or  so  sensitive.  Precept 
at  first  should  always  be  personal  and  if  possible  maternal,  for 
at  no  stage  in  the  life  history  of  woman  is  she  so  plastic  or 
susceptible.  Hence  this  topic  should  be  given  prominence  in 
all  mothers'  classes.  The  eminent  German  jurist,  von  Liszt, 
proposes  to  legally  penalize  men  who  infect  women  with  their 
own  not  yet  cured  diseases,  provided  such  men  have  been 
instructed  concerning  the  dangers,  in  the  hope  that  though 
convictions  be  hard  and  few,  a  sense  of  responsibility  in  this 
respect  now  so  feeble  may  be  awakened.  Judges  are  now  not 
only  enforcing  more  and  more  the  existing  laws,  but  in  impos- 
ing penalties  for  their  infractions  are  considering  not  only  the 
direct  physical  damages  but  also  the  shame,  humiliation  and 
psychic  pain  caused  to  the  victim,  and  this  is  strongly  advo- 
cated with  promising  results  by  Professor  Helwig,  of  Berlin, 
for  all  Prussia.  Professor  Ehrenfels  thinks  the  West  is  in 
danger  of  being  surpassed  by  the  East,  because  in  China  and 
Japan  practically  all  women  of  child-bearing  age  are  bearing 
children,  and  even  goes  so  far  as  to  propose  certain  immunities 
and  rewards  for  the  very  most  vigorous,  educated  young  men 
who  have  passed  a  medical  examination. 

Far,  indeed,  be  it  from  the  present  writer  to  indorse  all  the 
alx)ve  views,  or  the  yet  more  radical  ones  which  he  forbears 
here  to  mention;  but  they  are  all  well  meant  because  their 
purpose  is  to  reduce  vice  and  disease  and  to  increase  the 
fecundity  of  the  l>est  and  diminish  that  of  tiie  worst  classes  of 
population  in  the  interests  of  national  efticiency  and  the  father- 
land, of  the  army,  of  industry,  and  success  in  the  colonies,  etc. 
This  movement,  wiiich  is  represented  by  yet  other  journals, 
societies,  and  publications  too  numerous  to  mention  and  which 
rests  on  a  new  scientific  view  of  sex,  which  this  is  not  the 


4IO  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

place  to  discuss,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  designate  as  a  great 
moral  awakening.  Germany  may  not  be  a  greater  sinner  than 
other  lands,  but  it  far  excels  all  others  in  careful  statistical 
studies  and  various  social  surveys  which  have  brought  it  more 
self-knowledge.  Suffice  it  here  to  say  that  the  specific  move- 
ment there  to  have  definite  instruction  in  sex  rests  upon  a  tidal 
wave  of  new  interest  and  insight  which  at  present  seems  to 
bear  some  promise  of  rather  radically  reconstructing  present 
ideas  and  even  institutions  involving  the  relations  of  sex. 
Based  as  the  German  agitation  is  upon  solid  biological,  phys- 
iological, and  sociological  science,  it  is  also  ethical  and  national 
in  the  broadest  and  deepest  sense.  The  consciousness  and  the 
conscience  of  the  race  have  been  touched.  We  cannot  treat  of 
the  many  components  or  even  enumerate  the  agencies  that  are 
diffusing  enlightenment  among  all  classes.  The  most  con- 
servative and  even  the  governmental  authorities  are  tolerating 
and  listening  to  various  drastic  schemes  of  reform,  and  read- 
ing plain-spoken  literature  with  a  growing  sense  that  some- 
thing radical  must  be  done,  and  that  new  departures  impend. 
Thus  the  more  special  problems  of  sex  pedagogy  in  the  school 
have  behind  them  in  Germany  not  only  a  large  body  of  knowl- 
edge, but  an  intense  new  ethical  momentum. 

Meanwhile,  in  other  lands  a  sense  of  the  need  and  danger, 
if  less  accurately  demonstrated  for  those  who  demand  proof 
and  shared  by  a  far  smaller  proportion  of  the  intelligent  popu- 
lation, is  nevertheless  profoundly  realized;  and  small  though 
rapidly  growing  groups  of  physicians,  social  workers,  etc., 
have  organized  many  practical  agencies  that  are  far  wiser  and 
more  effective  than  the  type  of  purity  societies  of  a  quarter 
of  a  century  ago,  and  which  have  devised  a  new  kind  of  litera- 
ture for  the  young,  viz.,  the  few-paged  leaflet  in  place  of  the 
diffuse  and  unauthoritative  dollar  books  for  the  young  by  in- 
expert religionists  and  philanthropists.  In  France  sex  ques- 
tions are  now  discussed,  although  somewhat  incidentally,  in 
the  ['Education  Familiale  ^  now  in  its  tenth  year,  and  in  the 
Bulletin  Trimestriel  de  la  Societe  Protectrice  de  VEnfance 
Anormale.     The  French  also  have  a  Congres  International 

*  J.  Renault:  Comment  preparer  I'enfant  au  respect  des  questions  sexuelles. 
Education  Familiale,  1907,  vol.  8,  pp.  232-238  and  293-296, 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  4" 

contre  la  Pornographic.  This  has  many  branches:  fourteen 
in  Germany,  one  in  England,  two  in  Belgium,  one  in  Den- 
mark, forty-two  in  France,  five  in  Holland,  four  in  Swit- 
zerland, etc.  Its  purpose  is  to  prevent  the  manufacture  and 
sale  or  distribution  of  literature,  art,  etc.,  that  is  indecent  or 
suggestive,  and  to  bring  justice  to  those  who  oflfend  the  laws 
in  this  respect.^  In  England,  besides  direct  religious  and 
moral  agencies,  eugenics  represented  by  Galton's  Sociological 
Papers  and  The  Eugenics  Review  has  proven  to  be  a  line  of 
approach  of  great  practical  interest  to  the  English  aristocracy 
and  to  science.  In  this  country  societies  to  further  sex  purity 
and  to  teach  the  young  have  been  formed  in  the  last  three  or 
four  years  in  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  Chicago, 
Milwaukee,  Indiana,  St.  Louis,  Denver,  Portland,  Spokane, 
California,  West  Virginia,  Florida,  some  of  them,  be  it  ob- 
served State  societies.  Others  are  being  organized  as  I  write 
(April,  1 910)  in  Georgia,  Connecticut,  Texas  and  New  Jer- 
sey. These  societies  are  generally  composed  of  doctors  and 
laymen  and  they  seek  to  arouse  the  public  to  a  sense  of  the 
present  dangers  by  pamphlets  and  discussions.  (The  Chicago 
society  under  C.  R.  Henderson  has  issued  nearly  half  a  million 
pamphlets.  See,  too,  the  national  year  book  for  1908  of  the 
American  Society  for  Scientific  Study  of  Education  devoted  to 
this  subject.)  The  New  York  Society  has  associated  itself  with 
the  teachers  of  biology  with  a  request  to  the  authorities  to  pro- 
vide sex  instruction  for  all  first-year  high-school  pupils.  The 
Spokane  society  (which  has  also  distributed  nearly  half  a  mil- 
lion circulars)  addresses  one  about  their  birth  to  children  from 
6  to  10;  another  to  boys  from  10  to  13;  another  for  those 
about  13  or  14;  one  for  girls  of  14,  etc.  The  Maryland  so- 
ciety employs  two  paid  agents:  a  man  giving  half  his  time  and 
a  woman  giviug  all  hers.  "  The  children  from  10  to  12  years 
or  thereabout  are  taken  in  small  groups  and  given  very  ob- 
jective instruction.  They  have  in  their  room  flowers,  cocoons, 
frogs,  birds,  mice,  rabbits,  etc.,  so  that  every  step  in  each  talk 
has  definite  tangible  Ijearing  in  their  minds."  Various  similar 
attempts  are  being  made  at  various  points  with  children  in  the 

'  Eugene  Prcvost:  Le  Congrts  International  contre  la  Pornographic.  L'Enfant, 
iQoS.  vol.  18,  [)p.  258-261.  See  also  the  bulletins  of  the  Soc.  Franjaisc  de  Prophy- 
laxie  Sanitaire  et  Morale,  since  1900. 


412  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

two  upper  grammar  and  in  the  high-school  grades.  From 
these  and  many  other  centers  active  campaigns  of  education 
are  being  waged  against  vice.  The  new  movement  here  is  at 
present  perhaps  rather  too  much  dominated  by  the  medical 
standpoint  and  is  perhaps  disproportionately  conscious  of  the 
dangers  of  disease.  We  must,  therefore,  first  strive  to  evalu- 
ate this  factor  for  pedagogy. 

The  Use  of  the  Disease  Factor  in  Sex  Pedagogy. — To 
estimate  this  aright  we  must  glance  backward.  In  classical 
antiquity,  especially  in  Greece,  there  was  a  frankness  and 
openness  concerning  sex  life  which  our  day  has  lost. 
How  far  the  free  Arcadian  conditions,  originating  perhaps 
with  primitive  people  and  not  only  unrestrained,  but  aggra- 
vated by  the  ancient  civilizations  as  their  wealth  and  luxury 
increased,  became  a  factor  in  undermining  the  empires  of  old, 
we  do  not  know.  We  do  know,  however,  that  prudery,  self- 
consciousness  and  secretiveness  in  these  matters  have  increased 
in  recent  centuries.  Sexual  diseases  have  a  cultural  which 
is  no  whit  less  significant  than  their  medical  history.  Syphi- 
lis, which  has  had  much,  perhaps  more  than  we  know,  to  do 
with  the  great  pestilences,  seems  to  have  appeared  in  Europe 
in  the  fifteenth  century,  and  Ivan  Bloch  ^  thinks  its  story  will 
be  complete  in  five  acts.  Some  thought  it  due  to  sodomy. 
Its  first  recorded  outbreak  is  during  the  Italian  campaign  of 
Charles  the  VIII,  of  France,  in  1494.  His  army  of  32,000 
contained  soldiers  from  many  nations  and  spent  four  weeks  at 
Rome  where,  we  are  told,  there  were  14,000  Spanish  prosti- 
tutes. Wherever  this  army  went  the  disease  spread  like  an 
explosion  with  great  virulence.  All  historians  say  it  was  un- 
known. Although  some  pestilences  had  been  more  fatal,  "  not 
even  the  black  death  made  such  a  fearful  impression  or  left 
such  terror  in  the  souls  of  posterity."  Its  malignity  can  only 
be  explained  by  assuming  that  Europe  had  been  free  from  it 
before.  All  the  old  chroniclers  insist  that  previous  medical 
reports  from  Hippocrates  to  Galen  knew  nothing  of  it,  so 
there  were  no  remedies  and  the  deaths  were  countless.  It 
affected  all  classes,  even  the  clergy,  and  society  was  appalled 


*  Der  Ursprang  der  Syphilis.    Fischer,  Jena,  1901,  vol.  i,  313  p.     Also  Das  erste 
Auftreten  der  Syphilis  in  der  europaischen  Kulturwelt.     Fischer,  Jena,  1904,  35  p. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX^  413 

to  see  the  social  vice  suddenly  stand  out  in  such  a  glaring  light. 
Many  believe  it  was  imported  from  Hayti  or  Hispaniola  by 
the  sailors  of  Columbus.  At  any  rate,  Indians  there,  where 
it  was  less  fatal,  had  elaborate  modes  of  treating  it,  by  hydro- 
therapeutic  devices  and  sweat  houses.  This  very  skill  would 
indicate  that  the  disease  was  old  among  them.  In  ancient 
Mexico  there  were  experts  with  hospitals,  public  and  private, 
specially  devoted  to  this  disease.  By  the  year  1 500  nearly  all 
European  lands  had  suffered  and  in  the  early  part  of  the  next 
century  the  disease  spread  to  Asia,  China,  and  Japan,  although 
Africa  until  lately  has  shown  only  the  slightest  signs  of  infec- 
tion. The  virus  always  works  most  rapidly  on  virgin  soil 
where  there  is  almost  no  immunity.  The  moral  condition  of 
the  period  just  preceding  in  Europe  was  by  general  consent 
very  low  and  profligacy  was  open.  This  disease  was  given 
not  less  than  536  different  names  in  European  lands,  until  in 
1520  an  Italian  doctor  named  it  from  the  mythic  shepherd 
Syphilis.  This  was  the  first  .fatal  gift  from  the  New  to  the 
Old  World  and  is  in  a  way  connected  with  the  Renaissance 
and  the  Reformation.  It  impressed  the  world  somewhat  as 
leprosy  did  the  Middle  Ages.  Krafft-Ebing  believes  that 
there  are  deep  inner  connections  yet  to  be  known  between  this 
disease  and  the  type  of  civilization  that  has  since  followed. 
Its  influence  certainly  has  profoundly  affected  the  relation  of 
the  sexes  and  greatly  modified  love  and  given  it  a  very  distinct 
type  from  that  which  it  had  in  ancient  Arcadian  days  and  in 
the  Middle  Ages.  Schopenhauer  says  that  the  modern  period 
as  compared  with  this  is  stern,  gloomy,  and  sinister ;  while  the 
antique  world  was  as  happy,  careless  and  fre'e  as  childhood, 
The  two  principles  that  separate  them,  he  thinks,  are  the 
knightly  one  of  honor  and  venereal  disease,  a  noble  pair  of 
brothers !  The  latter  had  its  moral  as  well  as  physical  effects. 
Since  then  love's  arrows  have  been  poisoned  and  elements  of 
hostility  have  been  insinuated  into  the  relations  between  the 
sexes,  and  the  diabolical  element  involving  distrust  has  affected 
the  very  best  of  society.  Had  this  disease  existed,  there  surely 
never  could  have  been  such  extreme  immorality  in  ancient 
days,  for  there  were  no  sex  ghosts  that  haunted  the  world  then. 
This  disease  contributed  most  to  bring  the  great  horror  of 
women  devoted  to  pleasure,  as  mediators  of  disease  that  bears 


414  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

the  mark  of  Cain.  This  destroyed  the  mediaeval  Frauen- 
hduser.  It  compelled  caution  in  public  baths,  brought  fears 
and  perhaps  phobias  of  contact,  encouraged  certain  types  of 
separation  of  the  sexes  with  some  distrust,  magnified  individ- 
uality and  perhaps  favored  spiritual  and  physical  freedom  be- 
cause they  were  associated  with  isolation.  Indeed,  the  develop- 
ment of  individuality  in  the  Renaissance,  as  opposed  to  the 
mediaeval  communal  spirit,  may  have  owed  something  to  the 
horror  which  this  disease  excited.  Some  have  connected  the 
decline  of  culture  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  with  the 
advent  of  this  disease,  which  brought  some  subtle  psychic  al- 
teration into  the  consciousness  of  Europe,  which  is  possible 
when  we  consider  its  greater  severity  and  its  connection  with 
tabes  and  progressive  paralysis.  It  has  something  to  do,  too, 
with  individual  degeneration  because  its  hereditary  forms  gnaw 
more  fatally  at  the  vitals  of  society  than  its  acquired  types,  and 
its  results  are  seen  in  still-births,  divorces,  infections  from 
nurses,  sterility,  etc.  Its  infections  are  all  the  more  dangerous 
because  they  are  often  innocent.  The  last  act  in  the  drama  is 
the  weakening  of  the  virus  and  the  gradually  progressive 
immunity,  which  is  slowly  advancing.  Occasionally,  already 
children  of  syphilitic  mothers  are  immune.  Perhaps  the  strong 
mercurialization  of  the  previous  generations  has  something  to 
do  with  it,  for  quicksilver  acts  on  it  like  water  on  fire.  But  for 
extra-marital  relations,  syphilis  would  vanish  in  a  few  genera- 
tions. There  is  great  danger  and  increase  in  colonies,  espe- 
cially negroid  and  Mongolian  females  impart  a  most  malign 
form  of  the  disease,  so  that  cross  racial  types  greatly  intensify 
it,  as  is  seen  in  Anglo-Saxons  in  the  East.  Possibly  by  the 
end  of  five  centuries  from  its  origin,  its  European  existence 
may  approach  an  end.  Virchow,  at  any  rate,  has  assured  us 
that  this  disease  and  men  are  not  inseparable.  It  is  infectious 
only  and  has  no  known  spontaneous  origin. 

When  Fournier's  "  Syphilis  and  Marriage  "  was  translated 
in  1880  and  became  a  classic,  almost  nothing  was  known  of 
gonorrhea,  the  germ  of  which  was  discovered  by  Neisser  in 
1879  and  has  played  a  role  of  great  and  interesting  importance. 
Syphilis  strikes  chiefly  at  the  child,  but  the  gonococcus  at  the 
reproductive  function  of  woman,  besides  having  grave  col- 
lateral effects  of  many  kinds.     The  wreckage  of  these  chief 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  415 

venereal  diseases  is  caused  mostly  not  by  debauchees,  but  by 
men  who  pass  as  respectable.  The  latter  disease  is  far  more 
universal  and  venereal  morbidity  is  higher  in  cities  than  in  the 
country  but  gonorrhea  is  a  greater  depopulator.  A  recent 
German  expert  holds  it  responsible  for  more  than  45  per  cent 
of  the  sterile  marriages,  directly  causing  metritis  and  bringing 
social  misery  in  its  train.  Voluntary  childlessness  is  bad 
enough;  but  barrenness  that  is  enforced  against  the  dearest 
wish  of  a  woman's  heart  by  "  a  shame  that  cannot  be  named 
for  shame  "  is  far  worse. 

The  Cultus  Minister  requested  all  regular  Prussian  phy- 
sicians to  tell  him  how  many  persons  had  consulted  them  for 
their  own  sexual  diseases  on  a  certain  day,  choosing  April  30. 
1900.  The  answers  show  that  on  that  day  41,000  patients 
had  sought  relief,  although  as  the  report  was  voluntary,  only 
about  two  thirds  of  the  physicians  reported,  so  that  at  this 
rate,  had  they  all  done  so,  the  number  would  have  been  some 
60,000.  Even  this  number  is,  of  course,  too  small,  since 
quacks,  curists  and  druggists  whom  so  many  consult  were  not 
asked  to  report,  and  many  of  those  afflicted  refrain  from  con- 
sultation. It  is,  of  course,  impossible  from  such  data  to 
assume  what  proportion  of  the  community  was  afflicted,  even 
if  this  was  an  average  day,  but  it,  of  course,  indicates  that  the 
number  is  very  large.  Another  notable  fact  brought  out  by 
the  report  was  that  the  proportion  of  victims  of  these  diseases 
was  much  greater  in  large  than  in  small  cities,  Berlin  alone 
furnishing  a  little  over  one  fourth  of  all,  the  percentage  of  the 
population  seeking  medical  aid  increasing  somewhat  in  propor- 
tion to  the  size  of  the  town.  A  later  very  careful  census  of 
Mannheim  with  a  population  of  150,000  showed  4,200  diseased 
men,  the  great  majority  of  whom  were  fresh  cases. 

According  to  Birdseye,'  conditions  are  very  bad  in  .Amer- 
ican colleges.  After  gathering  in  his  first  data,  he  was  so 
appalled  at  the  results  that  he  feared  he  should  be  thought  to 
be  an  alarmist  and  his  conclusions  challenged,  they  were  so 
opposite  to  the  testimony  of  college  authorities,  so  he  printed 

•  See  the  data  whirh  C.  F.  Birdscye  has  collected  fmm  thirty  .American  colleges 
concerning  the  prevaU-nce  of  sexual  vice  and  diseas*-  and  drunkenness.  In  The 
Reorganization  of  our  Colleges.  Baker  &  Taylor,  N.  Y,,  1909,  4"°  P-  Sec  pp. 
1 18-145. 


4i6  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

thirty  booklets  and  distributed  them  widely,  sought  confirma- 
tory evidence  in  addition  to  his  own  conversations  and  cor- 
respondence with  "  hundreds  of  college  professors  and  officials, 
students,  deans,  medical  men,  and  recent  graduates."  He 
assures  us  that  he  does  not  use  the  worst  reports  of  the  evil 
"  which  is  at  the  very  bottom  of  our  college  waste  heaps  " ;  and 
finds  that  parents,  alumni,  preparatory  school-teachers,  and 
college  authorities  are  sunk  in  a  "  fatal  torpor  in  regard  to 
these  things."  "  In  many  of  our  larger  colleges  and  univer- 
sities, and  in  too  many  of  our  smaller  ones,  a  very  considerable 
part  of  the  college  home  life  is  morally  rotten — terribly  so-. 
Some  of  the  smaller  and  older  colleges,  with  grand  records  in 
the  past,  have  as  low  a  standard  in  student  morals  as  the  larger 
universities.  Some  of  the  worst  conditions  prevail  in  minor 
denominational  institutions  which  are  presumed  to  be  ultra-re- 
ligious and  to  be  the  chief  places  for  furnishing  clergymen  for 
such  denominations."  "  In  some  institutions  from  twenty  per 
cent  to  forty  per  cent  of  the  graduate  and  undergraduate 
students  consort  with  lewd  women,  and  at  least  as  large  a 
ratio  drink  to  excess  at  times.  The  proportions  are  much 
higher  in  the  upper  classes  than  in  the  lower,  showing  that 
these  vices  are  largely  the  direct  result  of  influences  which 
prevail  in  the  college  community  life  and  the  college  home. 
In  some  instances  at  least  twenty  per  cent  of  the  students 
have  been  venereally  diseased  before  their  course  is  finished." 
"  These  appalling  figures  are  based  on  the  carefully  sifted 
estimates  of  the  students  themselves  in  many  widely  separated 
institutions,  checked  off  by  men  whose  professional  or  other 
college  connections  have  brought  them  into  close  personal 
touch  with  the  college  home  life.  The  testimony  of  a  member 
of  the  faculty  as  such  may  be,  and  sometimes  has  been  found 
to  be,  practically  worthless  in  regard  to  these  matters,  for  they 
are  entirely  outside  of  his  pedagogy  and  therefore  outside  of 
his  department."  "  Except  in  large  cities  these  evils  are  much 
more  likely  to  be  perpetrated  in  a  neighboring  factory  center 
than  in  the  college  town."  "  Another  terrible  aspect  of  the 
social  evil  in  college  is  that  the  women  are  frequently  of  a  low 
class,  who  also  consort  freely  with  mill  hands,  miners  and 
rounders  of  the  worst  type,  and  are  almost  of  necessity 
diseased."     "  Our  college  students  are  not  financially  able  to 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  417 

indulge  in  expensive  luxuries  of  this  kind."  Our  college 
authorities  have  "  failed  to  properly  study  or  combat  these 
evils,  but  they  have  too  often  emphatically  and  unceasingly 
denied  their  existence,  when  a  little  examination  would  have 
shown  them  that  they  were  wrong.  One  professor  in  a  college 
situated  in  a  community  which  morally  is  notoriously  one  of 
the  worst  in  the  country,  was  quite  indignant  at  my  suggestion 
that  in  his  institution  any  considerable  proportion  of  the 
undergraduates  were  diseased.  But  after  a  frank  discussion 
of  facts  and  local  conditions,  he  admitted  that  the  average 
might  be  as  high  as  thirty  per  cent.  Again  and  agnin  this 
fatal  blindness,  and  even  unwillingness  to  see,  of  our  college 
authorities  is  encountered  by  those  who  investigate  the  college 
home  life."  "  The  percentage  is  much  larger  in  the  graduate 
schools  than  in  the  academic  courses;  .  .  .  and  it  is  not  too 
much  to  assume  that  in  some  cases  at  least  twenty-five  per 
cent  of  those  who  complete  the  professional  school  courses 
have  at  some  time  been  diseased."  Lately  the  press  con- 
demned a  Catholic  priest  for  warning  the  young  women  in  his 
parish  not  to  associate  with  college  students.  "  Those  who 
are  acquainted  with  the  student  conditions  in  that  institution 
know  that  these  priests  would  be  justified  in  almost  any  meas- 
ures which  they  might  take  to  protect  their  young  women 
parishioners.  A  reputable  physician  has  recently  stated  that 
of  his  own  knowledge  all  the  undergraduate  members  of  a 
certain  fraternity  chapter  (his  own)  were  diseased,  with  the 
exception  of  three  freshmen  who  had  just  been  initiated,  and 
that  almost  all  the  recent  graduates  had  suffered  in  the  same 
manner."  "  In  the  college  homes  of  some  institutions  separate 
towels  and  other  supplies  are  kept  for  those  who  are  actively 
diseased ;  just  as  in  many  such  homes  there  are  special  rooms 
and  accommodations,  *  boozatoriums,'  for  those  who  are 
brought  home  drunk.  In  too  many  college  homes  there  is  a 
fearful  obscenity  and  filthiness  of  language."  '*  College  and 
fraternity  banquets  frequently  end  in  drunken  orgies."  **  The 
colleges  are  too  often  blind  leaders  of  the  blind  with  low 
ideals."  But  I  forbear,  hoping  that  despite  his  careful  and 
conscientious  precautions  of  method,  Mr.  Birdseye  may  have 
been  misled  into  magnifying  the  evil.  No  one  familiar  with 
academic  life  can  deny  that  there  is  at  the  very  least  now  a 

28 


4i8  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

prima  facie  case  for  further  investigation;  and  if  these  evils 
exist,  moral  reorganizations  as  drastic  as  the  financial  ones 
this  author  proposes  are*  necessary.  I  firmly  believe  that  this 
author  exaggerates  a  real  evil. 

Dr.  P.  A.  Morrow  ^  avers  that  "  there  is  no  class  of  disease  in 
any  department  of  medicine  which  in  the  past  has  been  so  neglected 
and  mismanaged.  Many  physicians  still  look  upon  gonorrhea  as  a 
trivial  affliction  and  their  entire  armamentarium  consists  of  a  glass 
syringe  and  half  a  dozen  or  more  formulae  for  injection.  To  them 
syphilis  is  simply  a  sequence  of  primaries,  secondaries,  and  tertiaries 
and  the  whole  therapeutic  problem  resolves  itself  into  so  many  months 
of  mercury  followed  by  so  many  months  of  iodide  of  potassium."  This 
mere  modicum  of  often  mistaken  knowledge  is  to  be  traced  to  the 
low  standards  set  by  our  medical  schools  and  to  the  subordinate  posi- 
tion always  occupied  by  venereology.  Fifteen  years  ago  the  cata- 
logues of  seventy-five  leading  medical  institutions  showed  that  in  half 
of  them  there  was  no  special  provision  made  for  such  instruction, 
and  in  all  these  studies  were  elective  and  not  essential.  Since  then 
things  have  improved,  but  there  is  great  absence  of  proper  clinical 
facilities.  "  The  diagnosis  of  syphilis  furnishes  a  ready  refuge  for 
ignorance  so  that  patients  are  carelessly  and  often  wrongly  con- 
demned to  a  long  course  of  specific  treatment,  and  many  physicians 
lightly  sanction  marriage."  "  Taking  only  lesions  which  may  involve 
or  compromise  the  integrity  of  important  organs,  we  may  place  to 
the  debit  side  of  syphilis  90  per  cent  of  all  cases  of  locomotor  ataxia ; 
more  than  75  per  cent  of  all  ocular  paralysis;  a  considerable  per- 
centage of  cases  of  iritis,  choroiditis,  retinitis;  a  large  but  undeter- 
mined proportion  of  general  paralysis,  periplegia  and  hemiplegia; 
80  per  cent  of  all  cases  of  paresis  have  a  history  of  syphilis;  every 
hemiplegia  occurring  in  men  under  forty  years  of  age  not  addicted 
to  alcohol  is  of  syphilitic  origin.  This  does  not  include  its  morbid 
determinations  to  the  heart,  kidney,  and  other  organs."  "  The  bill 
of  its  hereditary  morbidity  and  mortality  is  much  larger.  Syphilis 
causes  42  per  cent  of  all  abortions;  60  to  80  per  cent  of  syphilitic 
children  die  in  utero  or  shortly  after  birth ;  those  who  survive  are  the 
subjects  of  dystrophies  and  degenerative  changes,  physical  and  men- 
tal, which  make  of  them  inferior  beings  unfit  for  the  combat  of  life." 

"  The  pathological  liabilities  of  gonococcus  infection  are  scarcely 
less  formidable.  The  undeniable  and  scientifically  demonstrated 
danger  of  this  infection  in  women  is  that  it  causes  80  per  cent  of  all 
deaths  from  inflammatory  diseases  peculiar  to  women,  practically 
all  the  pus  tubes,  more  than  75  per  cent  of  the  suppurative  pelvic 
inflammations,    and   50   per   cent   of    all    gynecological    operations." 

*  Education  within  the  Medical  Profession.  Medical  News,  1905,  vol.  86,  pp. 
1153-1156. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  4^9 

"  From  20  to  30  per  cent  of  gonorrheally  infected  women  abort,  and 
from  45  to  50  per  cent  are  rendered  irrevocably  sterile."  About  80 
per  cent  of  the  blindness  of  the  newborn  and  20  per  cent  of  it  from 
all  causes  is  due  to  this  infection,  and  yet  these  things  do  not  form 
an  integral  or  essential  part  of  medical  education.  The  public  is 
still  responsible  for  its  ridiculous  prudery  and  for  the  traditional 
prejudice  that  surrounds  all  these  matters  with  an  atmosphere  of 
shame.  How  can  the  teaching  of  young  men  to  lead  lives  according 
to  nature  and  health  be  profane?  Even  the  profession  itself  is 
tainted  with  this  atavism.  Even  sanitary  officials  entirely  ignore  the 
existence  of  these  diseases.  When  syphilis  arose  in  Europe  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  it  was  given  a  baptism  of  shame,  the  stigma 
of  which  still  clings,  and  this  "  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  there  is 
in  the  aggregate  more  venereal  infection  to-day  among  virtuous 
wives  than  among  professional  prostitutes."  To  the  former,  no 
odium  usually  ought  to  be  attached,  but  we  should  feel  for  them  only 
pity.  The  medical  profession  should  rise  above  this  insensate  preju- 
dice. While  these  diseases  are  always  a  misfortune,  they  are  not 
always  a  merited  punishment.  Reform  should  commence  in  the 
ranks  of  the  medical  profession  and  especially  in  the  professional 
education.  It  is,  however,  consoling  to  be  assured  that  what  Dr.  L. 
D.  Bulkley  called  "  the  great  black  plague  "  does  seem  to  be  checked 
in  some  quarters,  for  according  to  statistics  collected  by  Schwien- 
ing  ^  it  appears  that  from  1870  to  1880  the  chief  venereal  diseases 
in  the  European  armies  have  shown  marked  decline  in  France,  Ger- 
many, England,  Belgium  and  Holland,  and  a  slight,  though  less, 
decline  in  Austria  and  Italy,  and  perhaps  none  in  Russia,  although 
statistics  there  have  been  kept  only  since  1885. 

R.  C.  Henderson  gives  the  following  statistics :  "  In  the  Prussian- 
German  army  during  the  years  1873-93  the  average  annual  sickness 
from  these  causes  was  32.2  per  cent  of  the  active  soldiery ;  in  the 
French  army  of  1883-93,  43-6  to  58.9  per  cent ;  in  the  army  of  Austria- 
Hungary  in  the  period  1869-93,  53  to  81.4  per  cent;  in  the  Italian 
1883-93,  79  to  104  per  cent.  In  the  German  navy  there  were  sick 
in  the  years  1875-76  to  1888-89  on  the  average  127.9  per  cent.  In 
the  English  army  it  was  worse,  and  in  the  Dutch  army  the  ratio 
rising  to  224.5  ^"^  294.1  per  cent.  If  we  take  all  the  European 
armies  together  we  may  say  that  each  day  70,000  to  80.000  soldiers 
are  treated  for  venereal  diseases  and  more  or  less  unfitted  for  duty. 
...  In  the  civil  population  it  is  bad  enough.  Only  a  part  of  those 
affected  enter  hospitals,  yet  the  figures  for  these  arc  startling  enough. 
In  Prussian  hospitals  in  1887-99  about  240,000  persons  or  58  per  cent 
of  all  patients  were  treated  for  venereal  disorders.  In  more  northern 
lands,  because  greater  care  is  taken,  the  larger  ratio  obtains.  .  .  ." 

*  Beitrigc  zur  Kcnntnis  dcr  Vcrhrcitung  tk-r  vcncrischcn  Krankhcitcn  in  den 
curopjijschcn  Ilccren,  sowjc  in  der  milit&rpflichtigcn  Jugcnd  Dcutschbnds.  Hirsch- 
wald,  Berlin,  1907,  99  p. 


420  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

The  Committee  of  Fifteen  report  that  in  New  York  "  a  consider- 
able proportion  of  the  syphilitics  treated  in  the  hospitals  are  boys  in 
their  teens.  Probably  the  majority  of  sufferers  from  syphilis  are 
infected  before  their  twenty-sixth  year.  Of  10,000  syphilitics  who 
came  under  the  observation  of  Professor  Fournier,  817  were  infected 
before  their  twentieth  year,  1,530  between  twenty-one  and  twenty- 
six."  "  Of  3,122  children  brought  before  the  Juvenile  Court  in  1908, 
one  per  cent  of  the  boys  and  20  per  cent  of  the  girls  were  suffering 
from  venereal  infection,"  writes  Clara  Schmidt. 

Morrow  estimates  that  one  eighth  of  all  human  disease  and  suf- 
fering comes  from  this  source.  These  diseases  fall  most  heavily 
upon  the  young.  Every  year  in  this  country  770,000  males  reach  the 
age  of  early  maturity  or  approach  the  danger  zone  of  sex.  Judging 
the  future  from  the  past  some  60  per  cent  or  over  450,000  of  these 
men  will  sometime  during  their  lives  become  infected:  20  per  cent 
of  them  before  the  twenty-first  year,  50  per  cent  before  the  twenty- 
fifth,  and  80  per  cent  before  the  thirtieth  year.  These  450,000  infec- 
tions, be  it  understood,  represent  the  venereal  morbidity  incident  to 
the  male  product  of  a  single  year,  each  succeeding  year  furnishing 
its  quota  of  victims.  So  of  women,  about  80  per  cent  of  the  deaths 
from  inflammatory  diseases  peculiar  to  their  sex,  75  per  cent  of 
special  surgical  operations,  and  60  per  cent  of  all  the  work  done  by 
specialists  in  diseases  of  women  are  the  result  of  specific  infection. 
At  least  50  per  cent  of  these  infected  women  are  rendered  absolutely 
sterile.  Every  year  thousands  of  poor  young  wives  are  thus  infected 
and  their  aspirations  to  be  parents  are  swept  away.  Dr.  Louis  T. 
Wilson  ^  thinks  this  is  on  the  increase  in  this  country  rather  than 
on  the  decrease.  Is  it  not  time,  therefore,  as  Professor  Henderson 
says,  "  for  all  those  who  value  our  national  health  and  morality  to 
unite  in  a  reasonable,  earnest  and  patient  campaign  for  sexual  purity? 
For  apathy  and  neglect  there  is  no  longer  excuse." 

Dr.  W.  T.  Murrell  ^  states  that  with  emancipation,  the  stalwart 
negro  race  became  a  victim  of  the  sex  impulse  and  there  was  a 
carnival  of  indulgence  and  a  maximum  increase  of  births  between 
1860-80;  but  many  of  the  children  born  then  were  degenerates  as 
compared  to  their  forebears,  and  their  progeny  are  very  rapidly  de- 
clining. This  writer  affirms  the  general  early  defloration  of  girls  in 
startling  terms,  based  upon  a  collection  of  medical  opinions.  Worst 
of  all  is  the  increase  of  disease.  "  It  is  my  honest  belief  that  another 
fifty  years  will  find  an  unsyphilitic  negro  a  freak."  The  negro  is 
never  afraid  of  this  or  other  diseases  because  he  assumes  that  the 
doctors  have  a  cure  for  every  trouble.  Sexual  errors  are  never 
regarded  as  serious.     It  is  largely  this  disease,  connected  as  it  is 

*  A  Few  Remarks  on  the  Prevalence  of  Venereal  Disease.  Amer.  Jour,  of  Pub- 
lic Hygiene,  Feb.,  1908,  vol.  18,  No.  i,  pp.  39—45. 

*  Syphilis  and  the  American  Negro.  Jour,  of  the  Amer.  Med.  Assoc,  March  12, 
19 10,  vol.  54,  No.  II,  pp.  846-849. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  421 

with  the  abandonment  to  passion,  that  has  made  the  negro  to-day  a 
far  inferior  type  to  the  one  of  two  generations  ago.  "  His  mind 
and  body  are  traveling  different  ways."  He  is  no  longer  a  fixed 
type,  and  in  fifty  years  is  likely  to  change  even  more  than  he  has  in 
the  last. 

We  can  now  squarely  put  the  first  question  in  this  field. 
It  is  inevitable  and  parents  and  teachers  with  a  just  sense  of 
their  responsibility  must  now  answer  it  in  one  way  or  another. 
It  is  this :  If  the  above  is  true,  shall  your  children  be  clearly 
informed  of  it,  or  will  you  let  them  take  their  chance  in  igno- 
rance, for  the  results  of  which  they  may  later  hold  you  to  grim 
account  ?  With  one  tenth  the  danger  of  any  other  infection — 
diphtheria,  scarlatina,  etc. — you  would  do  all  in  your  power  to 
lessen  the  chances  of  contagion ;  so  why  be  silent  here  ?  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  must  not  forget  that  there  is  some 
justification  for  the  instinctive  reticence  of  elders.  Nothing 
seems  more  opposed  to  the  very  nature  of  childhood  or  better 
calculated  to  dry  up  the  springs  of  love  in  the  soul  at  their  very 
source.  These  grim  facts,  it  would  seem,  must  drive  juveniles 
out  of  their  paradise,  if  not  tend  to  make  them  old  and  pessi- 
mistic before  their  time  and  suspicious  of  all  their  friends  of 
the  other  sex.  Does  the  peril  justify  thus  blighting  the  joys 
of  young  life?  Will  not  such  inculcations  add  to  the  repres- 
sions which  psychopathology  shows  us  are  already  far  too 
great  in  this  field  for  some,  and  cause  most  of  the  neuroses 
and  many  of  the  psychoses  of  later  life?  Any  physician  can 
see  the  physical  dangers,  but  only  those  with  moral  and 
psychological  insight  can  do  justice  to  these  subtle  dangers. 
This  is  an  objection  which  must  be  weighed  with  care  and.  of 
course,  must  be  determined  on  with  reference  to  each  individ- 
ual case.  Young,  nervous  and  delicate  girls  sheltered  in  good 
homes  have  very  different  needs  here  from  hardier  ones  early 
thrown  out  upon  the  rude  world  alone;  and  neither  must  be 
the  norm  for  the  other.  Physicians  who  think  their  chief 
duty  complete  when  they  have  imparted  the  facts  and  figures 
of  sex  patholog\'  are  no  more  fit  to  cope  with  the  situation 
than  parents  who  live  in  the  fool's  paradise  of  fancying  their 
own  children  are  in  no  danger  or  have  yielded  to  the  natural 
reluctance  to  impart  this  repelling  information  to  their 
pubescent  boys  and  girls.     All  data  like  the  alnne  and  more 


422  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEMS 

should  be  in  the  doctor's  pharmacopoeia,  but  handing  it  out  to 
all  alike  would  work  great  harm.  Some  need  to  know  yet 
more,  and  a  few  lives  would  be  happier  and  richer  in  innocent 
ignorance,  were  this  possible.  Most  children,  however,  I  am 
convinced  need  to  know  the  general  facts  about  these  diseases 
as  about  others  that  they  may  catch.  Those  with  perverse 
inclinations  need  them  brought  out  luridly  enough  to  provoke 
sufficient  fear  to  organize  the  maximum  of  deterrence  possible 
in  their  souls.  The  case  must  be  "  put  up  to  "  certain  young 
boys  strong  and  hard,  in  the  most  concise  and  cogent  language 
that  the  gang  vocabulary  can  supply.  Fear  has  had  a  great 
deal  to  do  in  the  evolution  of  man,  and  it  is  our  bounden  duty 
to  utilize  it  here  for  all  it  is  worth.  As  adults  grow  to  matur- 
ity they  generally  lose  the  power  to  adapt  to  any  wide  diversity 
of  personalities,  or  even  to  recognize  them,  and  perhaps  no  one 
who  could  do  the  best  thing  for  a  tough  boy  here  could  also 
do  the  best  by  a  delicate  one,  or  vice  versa,  to  say  nothing  of 
girls.  He  would  tend  to  gravitate  toward  an  average  mass 
method  that  would  injure  both.  Our  returns  show  that  the 
very  street  gamin  knows  in  his  coarse  way  the  chief  facts 
about  these  two  diseases;  and  those  who  have  become  pre- 
cociously immoral  are  often  led  by  their  knowledge  to  get 
possession  of  and  actually  use  preventives  "  so  as  not  to  get 
stung."  Even  this  may  be  a  handicap  on  promiscuity. 
Teleological  writers,  however,  justify  these  diseases  as  specters 
designed  to  frighten  young  people  into  chastity  until  ado- 
lescence is  complete.  More  regard  them  as  efficient  agents 
in  eliminating  the  unfit;  and  if  they  could  be  safeguarded, 
would  let  them  kill  the  infected  individuals  and  families.  A 
few  regard  them  as  intensive  stimuli  of  individuation  in  those 
whose  genesic  power  has  become  poisoned.  In  sexual  selec- 
tion, too,  we  are  told,  love  favors  come  with. dangers,  and  in 
man's  artificial  environment  these  new  dangers  of  disease  sup- 
ply the  place  of  that  which  once  jealous  rivals  provided. 
Others  think  the  worst  result  of  these  diseases  is  that  they 
deter  the  best  and  most  prudent  from  the  hazards  of  matri- 
mony. But  all  these  are  merely  guesses.  One  thing  only  is 
certain,  viz.,  that  not  only  every  normal  boy,  but  also  every 
girl  in  the  early  teens  craves  and  needs  to  know  the  facts,  each 
to  be  sure  in  his  own  way:  for  boys,  bare  and  bold  and  with 


THE    PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  423 

every  detail,  while  girls  want  the  same  facts,  but  more  veiled, 
indirect,  taught  with  a  little  more  sentiment  and  with  adjust- 
ment to  temperament.  Both  are  stronger  and  better  for  this 
knowledge  and  more  able  to  face  life  with  courage  and  resolu- 
tion. This 'mental  preparation  should  come  just  in  time  to 
curb  the  first  uprush  of  passion,  to  which  our  forebears  applied 
hell  fire,  of  which  these  diseases  are  our  modern  version  and  sur- 
rogate with  the  great  pedagogic  gain  that  now  the  devil  fore- 
closes his  claim  far  mor€  promptly,  and  there  is  no  Redeemer 
to  rob  him  of  his  just  prey.  The  very  concept  of  Jesus  bearing 
all  our  diseases  and  infirmities  in  this  sense  is  repulsive. 

The  ancient  oath  of  Hippocrates  which  physicians  had  to 
take  was :  "  My  tongue  shall  be  silent  as  to  the  secrets  which 
are  confided  to  me,  and  I  will  not  use  my  profession  to  corrupt 
manners  or  aid  crimes."  To-day  the  medical  and  often  penal 
codes  enforce  professional  secrecy  and  perhaps  exempt  the 
doctors  from  disclosing,  even  in  criminal  trials,  information 
acquired  in  the  exercise  of  their  profession.  These  diseases 
put  up  to  the  doctor  a  new  and  serious  problem,  for  all  hygienic 
laws  require  physicians  to  report  diseases  that  are  dangerous 
to  the  public  health.  Venereal  diseases  are  so,  but  are  usually 
exempted  from  declaration  save  in  Norway  and  Denmark. 
Sanitary  bureaus  certainly  ought  to  register  these  diseases. 
The  French  law  punishes  a  physician  who  allows  the  nurse  of 
a  syphilitic  child  to  suffer.  If  the  father  of  a  girl  about  to 
marry  asks  his  own  physician  whether  the  prospective  bride- 
groom, also  his  patient,  is  fit  to  marry,  what  should  the  phy- 
sician do?  Under  present  conditions  he  would  certainly  be 
put  on  his  mettle.  He  might  refuse  to  answer,  or  advise 
against  the  marriage,  giving  no  reason,  or  appeal  to  the  young 
man's  honor  to  confess.  Occasionally,  scoundrels  rely  on  the 
doctor's  present  custom  and  code  or  reticence.  Should  the 
doctor  stop  short  with  simply  advice  agaijist  a  marriage  which 
he  knows  will  result  in  infection?  Some  doctors  urge  such 
young  men  to  insure  their  lives,  knowing  that  they  will  not  be 
willing  to  face  an  examination.  In  Spain,  a  physician's  certifi- 
cate must  accompany  every  demand  for  a  marriage  license.* 

•  Why  should  a  woman's  friends  warn  her  against  marrjinn  a  <lrunkanl  and  not 
against  one  infected  with  this  disease?  Dr.  Grandin  says  that  the  nubile  girl  of 
the  future  will  demand  a  certificate  of  health;  that  women  physicians  will  be  at- 


424  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

In  France,  Fortin  demands  a  law  authorizing  the  physician  to 
"  no  longer  respect  the  professional  secret  when  it  comes  to  a 
project  of  marriage."  Here,  however,  we  are  trenching  upon 
eugenics. 

Place  of  Eugenics  in  Pedagogy. — Luther  Burbank,  by 
his  magic  evolution  of  valuable  out  of  worthless  w^ld  plant 
stocks ;  Nietzsche,  by  his  effort  to  apply  Darwinism  to  man  by 
condemning  pity,  and  even  Christianity,  because  it  helps  the 
weak  and  sickly  to  survive  when  they  ought  to  perish  in  the 
interests  of  posterity,  and  by  insisting  that  a  higher  superman 
can  and  must  be  evolved ;  Galton,  with  his  contagious  idealism 
and  also  his  many  practical  devices  for  suppressing  the  bad 
and  increasing  the  best  family  stirps — all  these  and  many  more 
have  now  called  the  attention  of  the  world  to  the  subject  of 
human  heredity  in  a  new  practical  way,  and  revived  the  old 
dreams  of  a  Utopian  and  Platonic  or  a  kind  of  future  biolog- 
ical millennium.  As  opposed  to  this,  modern  philanthropy  not 
only  keeps  alive,  but  tenderly  nurses  the  weeds  in  the  human 
garden.  After  years  of  diligent  crossing,  when  at  length  a 
very  few  specimens  of  fruit  stand  on  a  tree  far  superior  to  all 
others  that  have  been  achieved,  Mr.  Burbank  kindles  a  great 
fire,  consuming  thousands  of  specimens  that  were  incapable  of 
producing  higher  types.  We  cannot  pull  up  or  burn  the 
human  weeds,  and  hence  it  is  very  doubtful,  despite  our 
marvelous  progress  in  arts,  sciences,  wealth,  and  comfort, 
whether  mankind  in  all  civilized  lands  is  not  actually  declining 
in  quality  as  biological  specimens,  as  we  know  it  is  beginning 
to  do  in  rate  of  increase  and  in  many  places  actually  in  num- 
bers. The  Malthusian  specter  of  the  globe  in  the  future, 
crowded  far  beyond  the  means  of  sustenance,  seems  thus 
effectively  laid;  and  if  it  were  ever  realized,  it  would  only  be 
by  the  spawn  of  degenerate  families  like  the  Jukes,  Ishmaels, 

tached  to  everj-  factory  and  store  where  girls  are  employed;  and  he  insists  that  pro- 
fessional secrets  should  no  longer  aid  in  the  spread  of  vice. 

Dr.  E.  L.  Keyes  combats  the  widespread  notion  that  gonorrhea  is  no  worse  than 
a  cold  and  that  a  mild  gleet  is  not  contagious,  and  above  all  the  abominable  view 
widely  shared  that  intercourse  or  marriage  is  a  wholesome  treatment  for  its  milder 
forms.  His  appeal  for  prophylaxis  (The  Need  of  Sexual  Education.  Med.  News, 
1905,  vol.  86,  pp.  1165-1167)  is  based  on  statistics,  which  he  thinks  show  one  in 
ten  in  New  York  and  in  Berlin  one  in  four  unmarried  females  are  syphilitic,  and 
holds  that  the  first  step  is  usually  drink. 


THE    PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  425 

Karnagels,  and  other  low-grade  stocks.  A  few  generations 
ago,  a  large  family  was  very  desirable,  especially  in  the  coun- 
try, and  it  meant  increased  income.  Even  a  widow  with  a 
large  family  was  a  good  marriageable  proposition.  Under 
present  economic  conditions,  however,  large  families  often 
seem  unwise,  and  the  strong,  natural,  wholesome  desire  for 
offspring  essential  for  the  prosperity  of  any  race  or  nation  is 
brought  into  direct  opposition  to  the  passion  for  advancement 
in  social  condition.  On  the  other  hand,  F.  Galton  says :  "  Few 
things  are  more  needed  by  us  in  England  than  a  revision  of 
our  religion  to  adapt  it  to  the  intelligence  and  need  of  the 
present  time."  ^  He  meets  the  criticism  that  human  nature 
w  ill  not  tolerate  any  interference  with  freedom  in  marriage  by 
saying  that  monogamy  has  been  established  as  against  promis- 
cuity and  polygamy,  both  by  law  and  by  social  sentiment.  So 
has  endogamy,  as  if  even  primitive  races  felt  human  traits 
more  valuable  than  money  or  land.  So  prohibited  degrees, 
and  even  celibacy  have  changed  pretty  settled  ideas  and  cus- 
toms of  sex.  Indeed,  religion  has  always  been  the  most 
potent  of  all  factors  in  matters  pertaining  to  the  transmission 
of  life  and  demands  now  honest  morals  in  unambiguous 
language.  Marriage  has  always  been  a  very  elastic  institu- 
tion. H.  G.  Wells  has  contributed  to  popularize  these  ideas  in 
England,  and  an  anonymous  writer  has  proposed  a  voluntary 
nobility,^  which  shall  lead  the  simple  higher  life,  to  which 
all  aje  invited  who  have  good  intent,  who  imagine  their  own 
l)est  and  strive  to  attain  it,  who  love  the  slogan  of  justice,  sin- 
cerity, truth,  control,  friendship,  honor,  no  matter  what  their 
creed,  provided  only  they  are  not  militarists.  It  is  assumed 
that  after  young  men  have  had  a  taste  of  wine,  love  and  song, 
and  have  "  felt  the  full  bite  of  able-bodied  desire,"  and  at  the 
age  of  twenty-three  or  twenty-five,  when  the  ebullitions  of  the 
earliest  youth  are  controlled,  they  may  like  to  enlist  in  this 
knighthood ;  that  the  elements  of  a  Utopia,  which  are  hidden, 
dispersed  and  disorganized  in  the  world,  unsuspected  even  by 
those  who  cherish  them,  might  thus  be  brought  together.  In 
this  Samurai  college  there  must  l)e  no  idleness,  but  no  drudgery. 


'  Restrictions  in  Marriage.     Sociologiral  Paj)ers,  i(>o5,  vol.  2,  pp.  i-i.?. 
'  Proix>sal  for  a  Voluntary  Nobility.     Samurai  I'n-ss,  n)0'j,  ji  p. 


426  'EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

There  must  be  seven  days  every  week  spent  from  sunrise  to 
sunset  in  the  open  air  alone,  fasting  and  in  silence.  In  a  sense, 
everything  here  is  a  discipline  for  ideal  parenthood.  We  need 
not  jest  or  take  too  seriously  the  proposition  of  H.  G.  Wells  ^ 
for  a  state  gratuity  to  each  wife  bearing  a  child,  to  be  in- 
creased if  the  child  proves  superior.  This  would  make  mother- 
hood a  paying  profession,  and  the  career  of  one  who  had  a  num- 
ber of  healthy  children  would  be  prosperous  financially,  so  that 
she  would  be  a  great  advantage  to  her  husband.  "  Prolific 
marriage  would  be  made  a  profitable  privilege."  This  Utopia 
should  issue  certificates  of  fitness  for  matrimony  to  such  per- 
sons of  both  sexes  as  wished  it  on  the  basis  of  examination; 
and  there  should  be  measures  taken  against  deceptions  on 
either  hand.  While  none  need  enter,  such  a  scheme  would 
attract  the  best  and  not  the  worst.  This  is  not  inconsistent 
with  A,  Lang  and  J.  J.  Atkinson,^  who  think  that  the  control 
of  mating  was  the  origin  of  the  state,  the  chief  function  of 
which  should  still  be  to  protect  the  interests  of  posterity.  The 
tribe  and  other  ethnic  associations  have  usually  been  marriage 
groups  which  tended  to  widen,  and  in  an  ultimate  system  there 
will  perhaps  have  to  be  a  place  for  about  every  marriage  type 
that  has  worked  well  anywhere  from  henid  theories  up  to  the 
Catholic  and  Comptean  view  of  the  indissolubility  of  this  tie. 
Of  course  such  a  eugenic  synthesis  is  far  away  and  its  only  use 
at  present  can  be  to  soften  the  rigidity  and  startle  the  unin- 
telligence  in  this  field. 

M.  Gruber  ^  declares  that  there  is  no  doubt  that  if  we  prac- 
ticed natural  selection,  bringing  to  bear  upon  it  all  the  knowl- 
edge that  we  have,  as  breeders  of  cattle  do,  within  a  few  gener- 
ations a  race  of  men  would  be  developed  that  would  far  exceed 
in  beauty,  physical  power,  and  ability,  any  the  world  has  yet 
seen.  We  might  also,  he  thinks,  produce  a  race  of  monsters 
by  violating  all  these  precepts.  He  admits,  however,  that  men 
will  never,  in  these  modern  days  of  freedom,  submit  to  such 
restraints  as  that  to  which  domestic  animals  are  subjected  in 
the  way  of  procreation.  Moreover,  there  are  no  experts  that 
could  guide  in  all  the  details  of  practical  solutions.     To  prcH 

*  A  Modem  Utopia.     Scribner,  N.  Y.,  1907,  393  p. 

'Social  Origins:  with  Primal  Law.     Longmans,  N.  Y.,  1903,  312  p. 

3  Hygiene  des  Geschlechtslebens.     Moritz,  Stuttgart,  1907,  93  p. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  427 

create  children  thoughtlessly  is,  however,  a  grave  violation  of 
duty,  and  to  do  so  knowing  that  they  will  be  defective  is  about 
the  worst  sin  man  can  commit.  We  can,  however,  apply  the 
constraints  of  law  to  prevent  the  multiplication  of  defectives. 
To  make  the  best  do  their  best  we  must  rely  upon  individual, 
race  and  social  hygiene.  Public  opinion  must  be  developed  to 
the  point  where  we  should  realize  that  for  the  fit  not  to  rear 
children  is  a  sin  against  the  community  and  the  future  and  that 
to  do  so  is  the  first  end  and  purpose  of  marriage.  Indeed,  he 
would  have  the  entire  sex  element  of  our  nature  regulated 
solely  with  this  end  in  view  and  would  increase  the  legislation 
which  limits,  if  not  exterminates,  the  unfit.  It  is  generally 
agreed  that  the  simplest  and  most  efifective  prophylaxis  against 
consumption  is  the  abstinence  from  wedlock  of  all  who  are  in 
any  degree  affected.  He  believes  that  about  all  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  biology  have  application  to  sociology.  J. 
Rutgers  *  insists  at  great  length  and  with  some  learning  that 
"  only  children  wished  for  by  both  parents  must  be  born,"  and 
insists  that  the  proper  use  of  preventives  is  "  the  physiolog- 
ical optimum,  a  godsend  to  long-suffering  and  heavy-laden 
mothers  and  may  be  the  salvation  of  the  race."  Dr.  Mott 
would  have  the  state  encourage  registry  offices  authorized  to 
issue  bills  of  health  that  would  have  not  only  moral  but  com- 
mercial value  to  the  possessors  and  their  children,  would  be 
of  use  in  life  insurance,  in  obtaining  employment,  and 
in  obtaining  pensions.  Savages  require  certain  achieve- 
ments or  ordeals  of  suffering  for  candidates  for  marriage. 
Why  should  not  the  hemigamy  of  the  future  be  ui)held  by  a 
force  equal  to  the  old  sexual  taboos  with  their  religious  sanc- 
tion? Some  would  have  concealment  of  grave  hereditary 
diseases  a  crime  so  serious  as  to  annul  a  marriage  contract, 
despite  the  belief  of  some  that  a  very  slight  taint  may  benefit 
rather  than  injure  a  good  stock.  Nordau  thinks  our  \aunte(l 
thoroughbred  animals,  e.  g.,  the  horse,  are  adapted  for  only 
one  purpose  at  the  expense  of  their  general  vitality  and  that 
it  would  be  hard  for  stirpiculture  to  select  the  really  lx?st  quali- 
ties to  breed  for  in  the  human  race.  He  cites  in  support  of  this, 
many  men  of  great  and  special  talents  but  of  ugliness  and  in- 

•  Rasscnvcrbcssening.    Mindcn,  Dresden,  1908,  303  p. 


428  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

feriority  otherwise.  Posada  thinks  a  great  general  good  would 
be  attained  when  women  would  refuse  an  impure  man  with  the 
same  repugnance  that  he  would  feel  toward  an  impure  woman. 
Perhaps  we  need  patriarchal  families,  Weismann  before  com- 
mitting himself  to  eugenics  wishes  further  information  as  to 
whether  tuberculosis  can  be  banished  from  a  family,  Tonnies 
and  C,  A.  Witchell  ^  are  uncertain  about  purposive  breeding  be- 
cause it  is  not  certain  what  should  be  aimed  at.  Should  a  good 
man  choose  for  the  mother  of  his  children  the  greatest  physical 
attractions,  or  a  spiritual  elevation  that  makes  him  forget 
them?  Selection  works  by  some  principle  too  subtle  for 
science  as  yet,  for  slight  inclination,  many  agree,  can  be  gener- 
ally influenced  by  hygienic  considerations;  and  it  is  at  this 
reserved  stage  rather  than  when  love  has  supervened  that 
appeal  can  be  effective.  Probably  if  all  the  lower  half  of  the 
race  were  to  marry,  their  progeny  would  be  superior  to  them- 
selves rather  than  inferior;  and  if  the  best  mated,  their  prog- 
eny would,  on  the  whole,  be  inferior  rather  than  superior. 
Eugenics,  with  its  honor  certificates,  may  perhaps  be  regarded 
as  the  culmination  of  all  that  we  call  evolution,  because  phi- 
lanthropy is  thus  extended  to  future  generations.  Senti- 
mental charity  would  be  eliminated  and  a  new  religion  inaug- 
urated, J,  F,  Bobbitt  2  points  out  how  the  many  aristocracies 
of  our  day  are  constantly  training  some  for  one,  some  for 
another,  kind  of  high  ability. 

The  number  of  children  born  of  native  American  parents 
is  now  less  than  in  any  country  of  the  world.  In  New  Eng- 
land where  the  situation  seems  worst  the  death  rate  of  whites 
numbers  much  more  than  the  birth  rate,  while  in  the  same 
region  the  birth  rate  of  those  of  foreign  parentage  is  forty- 
five  per  thousand  greater  than  the  death  rate.  The  advent  of 
five  million  women  in  the  industrial  wage-earning  field  is  one 
factor,  while  Rene  Bache  ^  estimates  that  voluntary  sterility 
costs  us  half  a  million  babies  in  ten  years.  Among  the  better 
classes  child  rearing  is  very  expensive ;  the  fee  of  doctors,  who 
to  justify  their  charges  often  exaggerate  the  dangers  of  child- 

*  The  Cultivation  of  Man  According  to  the  Teachings  of  Common  Sense, 
London,  1904,  168  p. 

*  Practical  Eugenics.     Pad.  Sem.,  Sept.,  1909,  vol.  16,  pp.  385-394. 
'America's  Race  Suicide,     Pearson's  Magazine,  1906,  vol.  15,  pp.  410-416. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  429 

birth  until  women  are  afraid,  is  from  one  hundred  dollars  to 
one  thousand  dollars.  According  to  Bertillon's  law  the  birth 
rate  is  inversely  as  economic  prosperity  and  he  finds  that 
among  the  poor  it  is  three  times  what  it  is  among  the  rich. 
Again,  free  religious  agnostics  are  said  to  have  the  fewest 
children,  then  come  Protestants  who  are  exceeded  by  Cath- 
olics, while  the  Hebrews  outrank  all.  A  German  woman, 
drunkard  and  thief,  had  834  descendants,  most  of  whom  were 
worthless  and  in  seventy-five  years  cost  the  German  govern- 
ment $1,250,000.  There  are  now  about  two  and  one  half 
million  more  bachelors  of  twenty  and  beyond  than  unmarried 
young  women  in  this  country.  Newsholme  and  Stevenson/ 
Taylor,^  Yule,^  show  that  the  fall  of  the  birth  rate  of  the  upper 
class  of  London  is  just  about  twice  that  in  the  lower  class, 
that  it  was  greatest  from  1891  to  1901  and  there  was  no  rela- 
tion between  this  and  the  cost  of  living,  that  the  decline 
extends  to  illegitimate  births  and  is  everywhere  due  to  artifi- 
cial prevention  which  threatens  the  welfare  of  nations.  W.  A. 
Chappie,"*  too,  thinks  that  natural  fertility  is  undimiqished, 
that  women  dread  maternity  and  crave  ease,  for  a  large  family 
makes  a  woman  a  slave.  The  laws  that  forbid  children  from 
eight  to  fourteen  to  work  prevent  them  from  compensating 
the  expense  for  rearing  them.  But  for  artificial  prevention 
marriage  rates  would  decline  still  more.  A  barren  life  and  a 
loveless  old  age  is  a  fit  punishment  for  olegantropy.  Our  view 
is  just  the  reverse  of  Stuart  Mill  who  thought  large  families 
should  be  looked  upon  as  is  drunkenness. 

Many  ancient  and  primitive  people  expose  the  child, 
especially  the  weak  and  defenseless,  to  eliminate  the  unfit. 
Just  so  now,  H.  M.  Boies  would  limit  the  fecundity  of  degen- 
erates and  McKim  would  kill  the  worst  criminals  painlessly  and 
tenderly.      Weinhold  would  castrate  annually  the  unfit  men 

'  A.  Newsholme  and  T.  H.  C.  Stevenson:  The  Decline  of  Human  Fertility  in 
the  United  Kingdom,  etc.  Jour,  of  Royal  Statis.  Soc.,  London,  1906,  vol.  <x),  pp. 

34-87. 

*J.  W.  Taylor,  The  Diminishing  Birth  Rate — Presidential  Address  iK-forc 
British  Gynecological  Society,  Feb.  ii,  1904.    Balli^n\  Lonjjon,  1004. 

*  CI.  W.  Yule,  On  the  Changes  in  the  Marriage  ami  Birth  K.itts  in  F.ngiaml  and 
Wales  During  the  j»ast  Half  Century.  Jour,  of  Royal  Statis.  .S«k  .,  1006,  vol.  (k),  pp. 
88-147. 

♦The  Fertility  of  the  Infit.     Whitcomlx-,  I»ndon,  n)0\,  p.  i--;. 


43°  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

and  sterilize  unfit  women  by  tubo-ligature  which  is  relatively 
safe  and  painless.  High  grade  imbecile  girls  just  able  to  earn 
their  livelihood  are  most  fecund  of  all  sources  of  degenerates, 
and  criminal  women  should  be  allowed  to  choose  between  the 
alternatives  of  surgery  sterility  or  life  imprisonment,  and  the 
wife  of  a  bad  or  diseased  man  at  the  end  of  his  sentence 
should  be  offered  an  operation  or  a  divorce  at  her  option. 
Induced  sterility  should  rank  with  induced  abortion  as  a  crime 
except  where  defined.  Voluntary  restraint  within  the  marriage 
relation  is  impractical.  Whether  a  great  increase  of  mankind 
within  the  next  generation  is  desirable  is  very  doubtful. 

The  fatalism  of  heredity  is  a  favorite  theme  for  novelists. 
Zola  showed  how  blood  relations  bring  prolific  but  worthless 
progeny  in  his  romance  of  Adelaid  Fouque,  who  married  a 
Rougon,  and  later  Macquart.  Freytag's  "  Ahnen  "  traces  a 
family  through  several  centuries  to  show  how  constant  their 
strong,  good  traits,  in  varied,  diverse  social  strata  were  of 
little  influence  on  heredity.  Also  T.  Manns  Buddenbrook's 
description  of  a  family  of  a  great  vigor  and  eminence  slowly 
broken  down  financially,  socially  and  morally  by  two  inter- 
marriages with  a  decadent,  morbid  stock,  is  illustrative.  Gor- 
don's "  Sebald  "  has  many  admirable  representations  of  hered- 
ity. Alfred  Book's  "  Der  Kuppelhof  "  describes  a  son  who 
inherited  vagabondage  of  his  father  in  the  fine  form  of  an 
exorbitant  fancy  which  caused  him  to  break  off  an  engagement 
at  the  last  moment  by  an  outbreak  of  strange  peculiarities. 

W.  Schallmayer  ^  thinks  that  the  classes  who  succeed  in 
life  tend  to  sterility.  Of  150  professors  88  were  fifty  years  or 
.over  and  these  had  3.8  children  each.  Theologians  come  from 
larger  families  and  still  have  more  children,  but  the  number 
declines  with  each  generation.  The  families  from  which  the 
younger  professors  come  are  smaller  than  those  from  which 
the  older  ones  come.  The  wives  of  the  latter  come  from  large 
families  and  a  small  death  rate  for  the  children.  Artists 
spring  from  families  averaging  over  six  children  while  they 
themselves  had  only  2.4  each.  The  same  law  was  found  to  hold 
for  men  in  service  of  the  state,  for  merchants,  manufacturers 

*  Die  soziologische  Bedeutung  des  Nachwuchses  der  Begabteren  und  die 
psychische  Vererbung.  Archiv  f.  Rassen-  u.  Gesellschafts-Biol.,  1905,  vol.  2,  pp. 
36-75- 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  431 

and    most    brain    workers.      Blaschko,    Steinmetz,    Odin    and' 
Candolle  found  talent  was  rarely  inherited.     Odin  found  that 
of  286  eminent  judges  two  thirds  had  not  a  single  relative  of 
mark. 

B.  Revesz  ^  has  collected  data  from  many  lands  to  show 
that  other  things  being  equal,  younger  children  are  taller 
than  older  children.  "  The  younger  the  mother  the  smaller 
are  the  children."  He  even  goes  so  far  as  to  attribute  the  small 
stature  of  the  Japanese  to  the  fact  that  girls  marry  so  young, 
while  among  the  tall  Scots,  Swedes,  Norwegians,  the  average 
age  of  marriage  is  older.  Again  he  seeks  to  show  that  the 
percentage  of  those  who  remain  unmarried  increases  with  the 
average  age  of  marriage.  Thus,  the  older  the  age  of  mater- 
nity, the  taller  the  children.  The  evidence  that  weight  follows 
the  same  law  has  been  brought  forward  by  T.  Kezmarszky.- 
The  evidence  here  is  as  yet  even  less  conclusive.  Where  the 
law  applies  it  appears  to  apply  alike  to  the  height  and  weight  of 
the  newborn  and  also  of  adults.  Lubbock  and  Woinsky 
have  collected  data  which  convince  them  that  the  swords  and 
their  handles  in  prehistoric  times,  especially  in  the  Bronze 
Age,  were  made  for  people  with  smaller  hands  than  those  in- 
habiting the  same  territory  now.  Petenkofer  relates  how  at 
the  crowning  of  Queen  Victoria  the  ancient  English  armor 
was  found  too  small  for  those  who  desired  to  use  it.  Pag- 
liani  has  pointed  out  that  the  Italians  are  taller  now  than  for- 
merly. All  these  changes  are  ascribed  by  Revesz  to  the 
increasing  age  of  the  parents,  particularly  the  mothers. 

J.  Orschansky  ^  based  his  studies  upon  2.441  families  with 
13,277  children.  He  divided  these  families  into  two  types — 
one  where  the  firstl)orn  was  a  boy,  and  in  tiiese  he  found  l)<)ys 
predominated ;  the  second  where  the  firstborn  was  a  girl  and 
in  these  families  girls  predominated.  The  age  of  the  mothers 
in  the  families  of  the  second  type  he  found  less  than  that  of 
mothers  in  families  of  the  first  tyi)e.  The  age  of  maximal  fer- 
tility was  greater  in  mothers  of  the  first  ty])e  than  in  those  of 

'  Dcr  Einfluss  dt-s  Alters  dcr  Mutter  auf  die  KoqxThohe.  An  hiv  f.  Anlhroixjlo- 
gie,  1906,  N.  S.  vol.  4,  pp.  160-167. 

'  Klinisrhe  Mittcilungen.     Enke,  Stuttgart,  1R84,  250  p- 

*  Die  Vcrerhung  im  gcsundcn  u.  krankhaften  Zustando.  Enkc,  .Stuttgart, 
•903.  347  P- 


432  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

the  second.  He  concludes  that  the  sex  energy  of  the  father 
prevailed  in  the  first  and  that  of  the  mother  in  the  second  type. 
He  also  concluded  that  the  cause  which  determines  the  sex  of 
offspring  was  an  hereditary  morphological  and  physiological 
function  of  the  entire  organism,  and  especially  of  the  sexual 
nature.  Another  important  conclusion  which  his  figures  indi- 
cated was  that  sickly  parents  were  more  prone  than  healthy 
ones  to  transmit  their  sex  to  sickly  children  or  those  that  inherit 
their  own  constitution.  The  greater  the  changeability  of  a 
part  of  the  skeleton  the  greater  is  its  influence  upon  heredi- 
tability of  that  part.  Men  show  a  greater  variability  and 
women  more  stability  of  skeleton.  The  length  of  children  at 
birth  increases  with  the  age  of  the  mother,  reaching  its  maxi- 
mum when  she  is  twenty-eight,  which  he  thinks  marks  the 
apex  of  her  greatest  power  to  transmit  her  own  qualities  and 
even  her  own  sex.  We  may  regard  every  child  of  greater 
body  length  as  a  representative  of  the  male  type.  There  are 
more  sickly  children  among  the  firstborn  than  among  those 
bom  later.  If  both  parents  are  feeble  the  later  children  are 
more  likely  to  escape  the  inheritance  of  their  disease.  Nerv- 
ous parents  have  a  special  proclivity  to  transmit  their  sex  and 
their  type  to  children,  especially  to  the  sickly  ones.  There  is 
greater  danger  of  progressive  degeneration  when  the  father 
is  sickly  than  when  the  mother  is  so,  more  for  boys  than  for 
girls,  and  this  tendency  is  greater  for  those  parents  whose 
diseases  are  organic  than  for  those  suffering  from  functional 
troubles.  Similarity  is  more  uniformly  divided  in  healthy 
families,  but  in  sickly  families  there  is  a  predominance  of 
similarity  of  boys  with  the  father. 

G.  Heimann,^  foreshowing  the  dangers  of  tuberculosis  for 
both  mother  and  child,  urges  that  physicians  should  prevent 
all  such  births  by  causing  abortions.  He  also  shows  that 
every  individual  and  moral  motivation  should  be  used  to  its 
fullest  extent  because  of  the  strong  propensities  it  patents  of 
this  disease.    C.  Ehrenfels,^  of  Prague,  thinks  even  monogamy, 

'  Das  tuberkulose  Weib  in  der  Schwangerschaft  und  der  Arzt.  Medizinische 
Klinik,  1907,  vol.  3,  pp.  538-544. 

^  Die  konstitutive  Verderblichkeit  der  Monogamie  und  die  Unentbehrlichkeit 
einer  Sexualreform.  Archiv  f.  Rassen-  u.  Gesellschafts-Biologie,  1907,  vol.  4,  pp. 
615-651  and  803-830. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  433 

which  has  done  great  good,  must  be  modified  to  save  the  race. 
He  doubts  Westermarck  that  this  has  been  the  chief  fashion 
among  primitive  men.  Hence  he  tentatively  suggests  a  new 
procreative  hygiene  and  sex  moraHty.  He  would  have  boys 
studied  very  carefully  through  all  the  school  grades  and  have 
all  modes  of  education  adjusted  to  bring  out  their  best  points 
of  character.  Those  found  to  be  superior  should  be  allowed 
to  revert  to  primitive  conditions  where  the  best  male  qualities, 
courage,  prowess,  idealism  were  stimulated  to  win  the  female 
and  a  few  such  elite  specimens  should  not  be  limited  to  one 
mate  of  the  other  sex.  The  chief  work  of  the  school  should 
be  to  standardize  the  best  potential  parents.  The  same  should 
be  the  goal  of  the  army.  All  should  be  constantly  judged  and 
compared  with  prize  bonuses  and  so  forth  for  virile  selection 
and  preventive  measures  against  the  multiplication  of  the 
lower  typeS  and  should  be  constantly  kept  in  mind.  He  insists 
that  love  antics  among  animals  and  among  primitive  men  are 
not  simply  to  win  good  will  but  so  that  the  male  can  be  po- 
tentialized.  These  radical  views  have  at  least  been  listened  to 
in  Germany. 

No  doubt  child  marriage  is  a  potent  factor  of  race  de- 
terioration in  India.  Of  ten  million,  from  five  to  ten  years  old, 
one  fifth  were  married  and  half  of  those  between  ten  and 
fifteen.  These  unions  with  older  men  result  in  precocity  and 
early  rob  girls  of  their  freshness  and  weaken  their  maternal 
functions.  Thus  the  system  decreases  fertility  and  some  think 
makes  this  race  so  susceptible  to  every  plague  and  pestilence 
and  paralyzes  the  will  in  famines.  This,  Ibidsson  thinks,  ex- 
plains the  fact  that  three  hundred  million  people  have  tamely 
submitted  to  English  dominion  and  extortion. 

J.  Miiller  '  thinks  that  we  must  revise  the  ideas  of  i)rinii- 
tive  marriage  that  have  come  down  from  P>ach;)fen  through 
MacLennan,  Lubbock,  Morgan,  Post,  and  Koblcr.  aiul  argues 
for  a  period,  monogamy  Ijefore  toteniism,  group  marriages 
and  Mutterrceht.  On  the  contrary,  promiscuity,  whether  as 
a  community  of  wives  or  of  hetairism.  does  not  exist,  but 
everywhere  there  is  a  tendency  to  durable  unions.  If  incor- 
porated by  the  so-called  higher  races,  we  often  find  an  acute 


'  Das  scxucllc  Leben  der  Naturv6lker.     GricUn,  U  ipzig,  i<>o2,  73  p. 
20 


434  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ethical  sense ;  "  a  fine  ethical  sense  and  a  heroic  self-sacrifice 
that  gives  us  with  a  millennium  of  culture  much  to  learn  and 
to  think  of."  There  are  very  few  of  the  lowest  races  who  do 
not  refrain  from  sex  relations  during  both  pregnancy  and 
lactation,  although  this  custom  has  been  one  of  the  motives  of 
polygamy.  Nearly  every  race  has  a  long  list  of  restraints 
upon  the  sexual  instinct  which  are  often  exceedingly  effective. 
Marriage  can  only  be  within  certain  limited  and  carefully  de- 
fined degrees  of  relationship.  The  Aztecs  required  a  suspen- 
sion of  the  marital  relation  for  four  days  after  marriage.  The 
initiations  at  puberty  often  reenforce  with  cruel  sanctions  the 
motives  of  continence.  There  are  long  -sex  disciplines  that 
precede  marriage.  Hardships,  wounds,  fasts,  vigils,  delays  of 
many  kinds  are  enforced  upon  people  who  are  often  ab- 
ject slaves  of  custom,  and  all  these  vestiges  originated  in  the 
profound  sense  of  the  necessity  of  self-control.  So  the  celibate 
orders  which  abounded  in  ancient  Egypt,  in  India,  in  Bud- 
dhistic lands  and  elsewhere  illustrate  the  same  effort.  There 
is  plenty  of  evidence  that  monogamy  and  asceticism  are  the 
aboriginal  possession  of  early  man  and  that  many,  if  not  most 
of  the  baser  forms  of  sex  relation  came  later.  R,  Rocholl  ^ 
well  says,  "  The  more  material  we  acquire  for  the  study  of 
lower  races,  and  the  more  we  understand  their  states  of  mind, 
so  much  more  sense  and  reason  do  we  find  among  them." 

Pedigrees  and  genealogies  furnish  very  important  data  for 
the  study  of  eugenics.  Most  are  naturally  more  interested 
in  the  history  of  their  own  families  than  of  others  and  it  is 
surprising  to  see  how  in  recent  years  studies  of  real  scientific 
value  in  this  field  have  taken  the  place  of  the  old  type  of 
family  book  made  up  entirely  of  names,  dates,  and  places. 
What  is  now  sought  is  a  record  more  like  what  physicians 
wish  in  seeking  to  trace  the  hereditary  symptoms  of  their  pa- 
tients except  that  the  eugenicist  is  more  interested  in  tracing 
back  the  good  traits.  Mendelism  has  not  only  given  a  new 
impulse  but  taught  us  how  to  make  these  studies  more  profit- 
able.   W.  L.  Liitgendorff-Leinburg,^  e.  g.,  advocates  systematic 

*  Philosophic  der  Geschichte.     Vandenhoeck,  Gottingen,  1878-93,  2  vols.    See 
vol.  2,  p.  485. 

*  Familiengeschichte,  Stammbaum  und  Ahnenprobe.     Rommel,  Frankfurt  am 
Main,  1890,  129  p. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  435 

genealogies,  calendars,  registers,  family  histories,  trees,  etc., 
and  would  have  every  great  family  organize  and  elect  a 
chronicler  who  should  gather  and  tabulate  all  available  facts 
concerning  every  member  of  it,  living  and  dead.  The  fam- 
ily archives  it  would  thus  develop  could  support  each  other 
by  exchanges  and  could  correlate  indefinitely  with  related 
branches  to  the  end  of  greater  self-knowledge  for  each  in- 
dividual member.  This  would  be  of  great  service  for  the 
further  study  of  heredity  on  a  broader  human  basis  and  would 
supplement  history  and  furnish  those  who  are  to  write  in  the 
future  with  valuable  data.  J.'  Grober  ^  describes  how  in  the 
sixteenth  century  German  noblemen  began  to  make  general  ef- 
forts to  preserve  their  pedigrees,  although  this  was  done  very 
crudely.  Recently  attention  has  been  called  to  the  high  biolog- 
ical value  of  properly  kept  pedigrees  by  men  like  Bollinger, 


n  =  num 
O   =  woman 

I  =  individual 

II  =  parents 

III  =  grandparents 


Gsober's  Diagram  Showing  How  Number  of  Ancestors  Increases 
FOR  Each  Individual. 

Martius,   Lorenz,   Strohmeyer,   Kekule,   von   Strndonit/.   etc. 
The  number  of  our  forebears  doubles  every  generation.      In 


'  Die  Bwk-utunR  dcr   Ahncntafcl   f.  d.    bioloR.    Krl)li(  hkcitsforsihung.  Airhiv 
f.  Rassen-  u.  GcscUschafls-Biologic,  n/34,  vol.  i,  pp.  604-081. 


436  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

fifty-seven  generations  we  have  130  quadrillion  ancestors,  or 
two  raised  to  its  fifty-seventh  power,  which  is  far  more  than 
all  the  men  now  living  on  earth.  The  above  numbers  are  too 
large  because  they  do  not  all  represent  different  persons — 
that  is,  the  same  individuals  often  recur  as  is  seen  in  the  mar- 
riage of  relatives.  Lorenz  has  figured  out  what  he  calls  an- 
cestral loss.  In  fact,  the  whole  human  race  is  in  a  sense  re- 
lated or  else  it  would  not  be  one  species.  How  is  this  con- 
nected with  the  monophyletic  theory?  All  individuals  who 
are  not  fertile  are  excluded  from  every  ancestral  table. 

It  is  a  very  great  question  as  to  whether  we  inherit  equally 
from  each  one  of  the  ancestors  in  one  of  the  above  rows  and 
what  are  the  laws  of  reversion,  prepotence,  sexual  transference, 
etc.  Moreover,  in  this  way,  too,  we  can  study  hereditary 
Bclastimg  and  if  we  have  a  comprehensive  table  can  get  good 
ideas  of  morbid  tendencies.  Often  now  the  entire  mass  of 
heredity  is  so  distributed  that  one  half  is  ascribed  to  the  par- 
ents, one  fourth  to  the  grandparents,  one  eighth  to  the  great- 
grandparents,  and  so  on.  Whether  this  numerical  distribution 
is  correct  it  is  hard  to  say,  but  it  is  a  convenient  scheme. 
Atavism  may  even  play  a  great  role  in  the  origin  of  new 
varieties.  Variation  does  more  than  simply  add  and  subtract. 
We  ought  to  be  able  to  estimate  hereditary  values  and  draw 
laws  concerning  the  origin  and  decay  of  qualities  in  general, 
of  the  effects  of  inbreeding,  etc.  All  these  qualities  seem  to  be 
transmitted  without  any  general  tendency  to  enlarge  the  germ 
cell.  The  microscope  cannot  discover  any  distinction  in  the 
structure  of  the  cell  of  different  species  to  show  differences  of 
race  or  family.  Parents  transmit  to  the  children  their  pro- 
toplasm and  in  the  early  stages  of  life  the  loss  seems  to  be 
about  the  same  whether  for  an  animal  low  or  high  in  the  scale, 
or  even  for  plants.  Kekule  has  made  special  genealogies  of 
the  extinct  families  of  the  Spanish  Hapsburgs. 

By  blackening  the  dots  in  the  preceding  diagram  to  repre- 
sent different  diseases  we  ought  to  be  able  to  show  their  laws 
of  transmission. 

Professor  R.  Sommer,  of  Giessen,  well  known  for  his  writ- 
ing on  psychiatry  and  criminology,  has  traced  ^  a  family  named 

'  Familienforschung  und  Vererbungslehre.    Barth,  Leipzig,  1907,  p.  232. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  437 

Solclan  from  a  Turk  who  settled  in  Germany  in  1300,  a.d., 
down  to  the  present,  giving  some  record  of  several  and  a 
fuller  account  of  fourteen  of  his  descendants  who  attained 
more  or  less  eminence.  He  finds  most  of  those  members  of 
this  family  whose  lives  afford  sufficient  data  for  judgment 
characterized  by  high-mindedness,  active  artistic  ability  and 
a  unique  and  vivid  style.  A  number  have  marked  gifts  for 
physics  and  mathematics,  and  those  who  have  left  books  or 
other  writings  behind  were  endowed  with  a  lively  imagination, 
a  copious  vocabulary,  and  a  love  of  detail  or  history,  topog- 
raphy and  natural  science.  To  what  the  writer  thinks  a 
family  propensity  to  keep  pedigrees  and  write  family  histories, 
the  author  owes  his  very  exceptionally  copious  genealogical 
material.  Pronounced  individuality  and  a  passion  for  per- 
sonal freedom  made  them  all,  for  generations,  ardent  Protes- 
tants. Perhaps  their  most  marked  trait  was  a  gift  of  optic, 
plastic  representation  which  crops  out  over  and  over  again  and 
seems  to  have  been  transmitted  to  and  through  the  female 
members  of  the  stirp.  While  no  very  solid  inference  can  be 
based  on  one  family,  however  large,  and  while  even  this  record 
includes  but  a  few  of  all  the  descendants  of  their  Turkish 
ancestor,  the  author  believes  it  to  be  of  value.  It  seems  to 
show  anew  that  every  individual  is  a  branch  of  his  family  tree, 
that  talent  is  often  innate  and  may  become  patent  or  remain 
latent  and  unsuspected  according  as  circumstances  favor  or 
retard.  The  power  of  adaptation  increases  with  endogenous 
variation  and  where  there  are  reversions,  they  are  often  to  the 
traits  of  the  mother's  ancestors.  Perhaps  in  man  as  in  plants, 
hybrids  contain  two  kinds  of  germs;  one  that  reproduces  hy- 
brids, and  another  normal  individuals  with  (Uiminant  and 
recessive  qualities.  Sommer  would  have  us  all  develop  an  in- 
tense consciousness  of  family  and  even  race  and  keep  in  per- 
manent form  a  register  of  the  items  of  biological  importance 
in  our  family  to  be  transmitted  to  our  remotest  offspring.  He 
even  desiderates  a  full  characterization  of  the  conditions  of 
conception,  pregnancy,  and  confinement,  as  well  as  a  record 
of  childhood,  its  education,  important  hygienic  and  cultural 
experiences,  how  the  crisis  of  adolescence  was  achieved,  with 
memoranda  of  courtship,  wedlock,  tastes,  achievements,  ill- 
nesses, and  death. 


43^  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

Dr.  F.  A.  Woods  ^  made  a  careful  study  of  832  members 
of  European  Royal  houses,  incidentally  referring  to  no  less 
than  3,312  persons.  Of  each  of  his  preferred  lists  he  quoted 
the  adjectives  and  other  characterizations  used  by  historians 
and  biographers  as  the  basis  of  his  estimate  and  thus  divided 
his  kings  and  queens  into  two  series  of  ten  grades  each,  one 
for  mental  and  another  for  moral  qualities.  He  finds  that  it 
is  very  hard  to  find  any  information  of  the  pedigree  of  even 
royalty  on  the  maternal  side,  family  trees  being  usually  reck- 
oned in  the  male  line.  The  study  of  heredity,  however,  requires 
equal  knowledge  of  all  the  ancestors  of  the  backward  diverging 
line.  Woods  picked  up  every  individual  in  the  pedigree  so  far 
as  he  could,  and  in  this  way  considers  the  Royal  Houses  of 
England,  Germany,  France,  Spain,  Austria,  Russia,  Sweden, 
etc.,  with  the  aid  of  many  portraits  and  with  considerable 
use  of  Karl  Pearson's  methods,  but  rather  in  Galton's  spirit. 
He  concludes  that  neither  luxury  nor  close  intermarriage  has 
produced  degenerate  royal  families ;  that  is,  that  there  is  no 
decadence  in  them  due  to  their  exalted  position  per  se.  Pol- 
lutions have  arisen  through  the  relation  of  male  members  with 
degenerate  families.  While  some  branches  decline,  others  have 
steadily  improved.  Perhaps  no  other  800  random  names  of  a 
class  would  yield  the  twenty-five  world  geniuses  he  finds  here. 
His  study  suggests  that  kings  waged  war  leading  to  a  survival 
of  the  fittest  to  attain  their  position,  that  their  exclusive  ranks 
were  recruited  by  fresh  grafts  from  vigorous  personalities 
who  won  their  way  into  the  royal  field.  Thus  the  very  for- 
mation of  such  a  family  is  due  to  selection  in  ability,  the  first 
tenth  on  the  virtue  scale,  and  vice  versa,  showing  the  distinct 
correlation  between  mental  and  moral  traits,  and  suggesting 
that  improvement  of  each  tends  to  better  the  other.  The  in- 
ference here  is  that  riches  and  luxury  do  not  make  for  de- 
generation. Pearson  showed  that  commoners  do  not  mate 
pangamously,  but  like  tends  to  choose  like  assortively,  and 
even  found  that  husband  and  wife  in  some  traits  are  more  alike 
than  are  uncle  and  niece,  or  than  first  cousins.  Woods  finds 
nothing  to  refute  this  view,  but  his  studies  do  not  sustain  the 
theory  of  free  and  thorough  blending  of  qualities,  but  afford 

*  Mental  and  Moral  Heredity  in  Royalty.     Holt,  N.  Y.,  1906,  312  p. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  439 

many  examples  of  at  least  partial  alternative  inheritance. 
Heredity  he  thinks  "  almost  the  entire  cause  of  mental 
achievements  of  these  men  and  women,  and  that  environment 
or  free  will  must  consequently  play  very  minor  roles."  Envi- 
ronment is  "  a  totally  inadequate  explanation  "  of  intellectual 
life.  When  strong  contrasts  are  found  among  the  children, 
they  are  always  found  among  the  ancestors,  but  the  environ- 
ment affects  lower  organisms  most  and  higher  attributes 
least.  Selection  is  of  prime,  and  education  of  only  subordi- 
nate, importance.  Not  enough  is  acquired  to  be  inherited. 
Traits  found  in  one  parent  and  in  half  the  ancestry  will  prob- 
ably appear  with  equal  force  in  one  out  of  every  two  descend- 
ants. Traits  possessed  by  neither  parent,  but  by  all  the 
ancestry,  would  also  have  one  chance  in  two  of  appearance  in 
the  children.  Mental  and  moral  qualities  blend  so  little  that  a 
child  will  probably  resemble  rather  completely  one  of  his  an- 
cestors rather  than  another. 

Few  more  practical  or  striking  illustrations  of  heredity 
are  known  than  those  due  to  the  campaigns  of  the  First  Napo- 
leon who,  it  is  estimated,  was  responsible  for  the  death  of  from 
two  to  three  millions  of  the  strongest,  most  able-bodied  young 
men,  the  very  flower  of  their  respective  countries.  These 
millions  who  perished  on  the  battle  field  left  few  or  no  off- 
spring. And  all  soldiers,  even  those  who  return,  leave  weaker 
members  of  their  sex  home  to  propagate  offspring.  This  is 
pulling  up  the  corn  for  the  sake  of  the  weeds.  One  result 
upon  France  of  these  long  wars  is  that  the  minimal  stature 
which  France  requires  for  her  soldiers  has  been  twice  reduced 
so  that  Figaro  not  long  since  represented  La  Grande  Nation 
extending  her  hands  and  saying,  "  Suffer  little  children  to 
come  unto  me  for  of  such  is  the  Army  of  France."  ^  Wars 
thus  always  interfere  with  eugenics  by  cutting  off  the  best  dur- 
ing the  years  most  favorable  for  procreation,  wh'le  promiscu- 
ous charity,  on  the  other  hand,  interferes  by  preventing  elimi- 
nation of  the  worst  and  often  enabling  them  to  propagate  with 

•  See  Otto  Seeck's  Geschichte  des  Untergangs  der  antiken  Welt,  iqoi-iqio,  6  v. 
In  his  chapter  on  the  extermination  of  the  best  he  has  shown  how  not  only  France 
but  GR-iTe,  Rome,  Babylon's  decline  and  fall  came  from  want  of  men.  "  Vir  gave 
place  to  homo."  Sec  also  D.  S.  Jordan's  The  Blood  of  the  Nation.  American 
Unitarian  Assoc.,  Boston,  1903,  82  p. 


440  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

great  fecundity.  We  must  not,  however,  forget  that  the  army 
now  in  the  best  nations,  e.  g.,  Germany,  is  a  splendid  school 
for  both  body  keeping,  physical,  mental  and  even  moral  devel- 
opment especially  under  the  new  educative  policies,  while, 
especially  in  times  of  war,  the  armies  are  great  schools  of 
courage,  discipline  and  patriotism. 

Thus  I  have  in  the  above  merely  sampled  a  few  of  the 
salient  facts  and  fields  of  eugenics  only  in  order  to  raise  the 
question  of  the  pedagogic  place,  value,  and  method  of  this  new 
subject  in  an  educational  system.  I  hold  that  its  rudiments 
should  be  in  some  way  imparted  to  every  boy  and  girl  in  the 
early  teens  and  that  it  should  be  continued  in  high  school  and 
in  college.  Rightly  taught  it  gives  a  new  apperception  organ 
for  history,  for  sociology,  and  reveals  the  biologic  basis  that 
underlies  all  human  institutions  and  achievements.  It  enables 
the  pupil  to  understand,  too,  a  number  of  the  most  basal  mo- 
tives of  morals  and  religion.  It  sublimates  the  intense  natural 
interest  in  sex  during  the  teens,  long-circuits,  elevates  it,  and 
besides  great  intellectual  there  lie  in  it  also  even  greater  moral 
possibilities.  It  broadens  the  historic  sense  by  showing  the 
individual's  relations  to  both  his  ancestors  and  to  posterity, 
and  inculcates  the  sacredness  of  the  immortality  of  the  germ- 
plasm  which  must  be  served  as  a  center  of  supreme  interest  in 
all  human  affairs.  Nothing  has  opened  to  the  pedagogue  such 
a  sudden,  new  wealth  of  matter  and  method  or  such  a  new 
mine  of  interest,  which  it  now  remains  to  work  for  all  it 
is  worth.  This  part  of.  sex  pedagogy  is  perhaps  as  remote  as 
possible  and  in  many  respects  is  a  diametrical  opposite  of  the 
pedagogy  of  a  sex  disease,  for  the  former  opens  one  of  the 
most  encouraging  vistas  into  the  future  and  suggests  that 
circa  fifteen  hundred  million  people  alive  on  the  earth  to-day 
are  not  only  merely  a  handful  but  are  only  pygmoids  and  per- 
haps mattoids  of  nobler  generations  of  men  that  are  to  tenant 
the  earth  long  after  we  are  gone.  Eugenics,  too,  is  now  great- 
ly needed  to  counterpoise  relatively  every  excessive  emphasis 
laid  by  educators  of  all  grades  upon  the  social  aspects  of  life 
and  training.  This  on  the  contrary  reminds  us  that  individual- 
ity has  its  needs  and  duties  and  must  be  more  effectively 
stressed  to  bring  things  again  to  harmony.  Again,  in  our 
close  relations  to  our  fellow  men  we  must  not  forget  our  fore- 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  441 

bears  to  whom  we  owe  either  adoration,  Hke  the  Chinese 
ancestor  worship,  or  curses,  like  the  sad  hero  of  Ibsen's 
"  Ghosts."  If  we  would  utilize  all  the  natural  interest  which 
has  limitless  possibilities  of  quickening  not  only  the  mind  but 
morals,  it  may  be  that  we  should  be  able  to  find  and  keep  in 
mind  a  settled  but  very  important  line,  which  men  and  espe- 
cially women  need  to  know,  between  normal  effort  and  over- 
drawing our  powers  so  that  we  shall  not  take  out  of  our  system 
more  than  it  can  bear. 


Only  by  many  kinds  of  effort  and  by  trying  many  methods  shall 
we  be  able  to  develop  the  true  pedagogy  of  this  fascinating  subject. 
I  hesitate  to  append  here  the  method  which  I  myself  have  repeatedly 
used  to  introduce  a  single  aspect  of  the  subject  with  high-school 
girls  and  boys  together.  I  first  ask:  How  many  of  you  have  grand- 
parents? How  many  can  name  all  four  of  them?  We  then  find  out 
how  many  who  have  them  were  born  during  the  civil  war,  1860-65, 
and  how  many  of  them  died  in  the  war.  We  then  go  back  to  the 
eight  great  grandparents  and  to  the  sixteen  great  great  grandparents. 
This  takes  us  somewhere  near  the  year  1800.  We  can  then  go  back 
five  generations  in  which  the  pupils  had  32  ancestors,  near  the 
strong  minds  of  1776  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Surely 
with  so  many  in  this  generation  nearly  all  whose  families  were  then 
living  in  this  country  must  have  had  revolutionary  sires.  Thus  we 
go  back  always  noting  the  important  historical  events,  the  days  of 
Cromwell,  Columbus,  the  Magna  Charta,  and  back  perhaps  some 
thirty  generations  till  we  get  to  a.d.  900,  the  day  of  Otho  the  Great. 
This  tends  to  bring  a  sense  of  vital  connection  with  the  past  and  a 
certain  pride  of  lineage. 

If,  instead  of  recording  three  generations  per  century  we  record 
four  as  is  nearly  right  with  the  low  classes,  the  increase  is  still  more 
rapid.  Now  the  wisdom  and  folly  of  pedigree  can  be  mentioned. 
All  might  be  exhorted  to  keep  family  registers,  to  look  up  old  Bibles, 
to  interest  themselves  in  their  own  family  tree  and  a  certain  few 
lessons  might  be  suggested.  Jordan  says  that  probably  all  young 
people  to-day  have  had  among  their  numerous  ancestors  certain 
kings  and  queens,  but  adds  that  they  have  also  had  murderers  who 
have  been  executed  on  the  gibbet.  How  we  all  hope  that  most  of 
our  ancestors  were  strong  and  healthy  in  body  as  well  as  good !  How 
we  wish  they  could  foresee  our  interest  in  their  health  and  virtue  ! 
They,  however,  have  not  fated  us,  for  there  are  sjwrts,  geniuses 
from  low  families,  as  well  as  stupids  from  good  ones.  Haeckel  figures 
five  million  generations  in  man's  pedigree.  We  all  inherit  many 
great  possibilities  from  this  dense  cloud  of  witnesses  that  have  gone 
before  us.  One  ounce  of  good  heredity  is  beyond  all  price.  All 
the  best  things  in  us  are  there  because  our  ancestors  did  not  drink, 


442  .  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

debauch  themselves,  or  lay  the  dead  hand  of  heredity  upon  us  to 
handicap  or  blight  our  lives. 

Now  from  the  past  let  us  turn  to  the  future.  Here  we  have  no 
facts  or  history  but  only  possibilities.  Suppose  a  pair  married  to- 
day in  1910,  produced  and  reared  4  children.  Thirty-five  years  later, 
in  1945,  their  children  marry  and  rear  4  children.  In  1980,  or  35 
years  later,  these  marry  and  produce  4,  in  2015  another,  in  2050  still 
another,  in  2080  yet  another,  and  by  2120  another  generation  is 
produced.  At  this  latter  date,  then,  the  single  pair  married  to-day 
would  have  produced  128  offspring  in  a  single  generation,  or  252 
offspring  during  all  these  generations.  We  have  only  to  figure  this 
out  to  carry  this  simple  doubling  on,  reckoning  some  3  generations 
per  century,  and  if  the  rate  of  increase  kept  up,  before  the  end  of 
the  26th  century  of  our  era,  people  marrying  now  would  have  over 
2,000,000  offspring  in  a  single  generation.  Some  of  you  may  be 
thus  prolific.  If  your  families  were  larger  and  all  lived  you  would 
have  a  still  larger  number  of  descendants.  But  of  course  this  will 
come  to  but  very  few  of  you.  Some  will  die,  some  will  never  marry, 
some  will  have  no,  others  few,  children,  and  these  may  die.  Think 
how  all  who  come  after  us,  whether  few  or  many,  are  entirely  de- 
pendent upon  our  health,  upon  our  virtue,  and  think  how  sad  it  is 
to  often  see  people  die  well  on  in  years  who  leave  no  children,  so  that 
the  line  and  perhaps  the  very  name  becomes  entirely  extinct !  Back- 
ward it  goes  to  the  very  dawn  of  life  but  here  the  family  becomes 
extinct.  This  often  happens  here  in  New  England  in  the  region 
of  abandoned  farms. 

Thus,  we  realize  that  the  fifteen  hundred  million  people  alive  to- 
day are  only  a  mere  handful  compared  with  those  who  are  to  come 
after  us.  Of  course  there  have  been  constant  extinctions.  Animal 
species  have  died  out  for  very  many  reasons,  because  they  did  not 
fit  or  adjust  to  their  environment,  were  weak,  diseased,  preyed  upon. 
Human  institutions  die.  Not  a  living  person  to-day  worships  Jove, 
who  for  the  proudest  races  on  earth  in  classical  times  was  father 
of  gods  and  men.  All  this  teaches  that  we  are  simply  trustees  of 
our  lives.  Our  faculties  constitute  the  crew  to  navigate  the  ship 
from  the  port  of  departure,  which  is  birth,  to  the  port  of  destination, 
which  is  death.  Now  if  we  overdraw  our  energies  or  squander  in 
selfish  indulgence  or  sin  powers  that  were  meant  to  insure  the  life, 
health  and  happiness  of  posterity,  we  are  like  sailors  that  mutiny, 
break  into  the  hold,  loot  the  cargo  and  set  up  as  pirates.  Honor, 
or  the  instincts  that  make  a  gentleman  and  a  lady,  when  we  inter- 
pret them  aright,  is  living  for  the  interests  of  the  unborn.  As  to 
charities,  we,  of  course,  need  to  help  the  defectives,  for  it  does  us 
good.  But  the  best  ought  to  survive  and  to  receive  most  care.  In 
many  lands  to-day  the  human  harvest  is  not  satisfactory.  This  must 
change  or  these  nations  will  go  the  way  of  ancient  Rome  and  Greece, 
or  Burbank's  plants  that  would  not  develop  higher  species.  Such 
races,  like  condemned  machinery,  will  go  to  the  scrap  heap  or  the 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  443 

dump.  Nations  must  not  breed  from  inferior  specimens  any  more 
than  farmers,  for  neither  can  long  endure  the  law  of  diminishing 
returns. 

Sex  and  Its  Pedagogy  Before  Puberty. — It  has  generally 
been  assumed  that  in  the  regimen  of  children  before  the  teens, 
sex  needed  little  attention  because  it  hardly  existed.  It  was 
enough  to  protect  them  from  local  excitement  and  keep  them 
from  seeing  or  hearing  things  gross  or  indecent.  Recent  in- 
vestigations, however,  indicate  that  this  is  a  very  grave  mis- 
take. Not  only  has  Bell,^  who  collected  scores  of  cases  of 
ardent  love  life  in  children  under  twelve,  even,  indeed,  as 
young  as  five,  three  or  even  two  years  of  age,  shown  that  the 
aflfection  was  manifestly  more  or  less  of  the  adult  type,  but 
Freud  ^  has  described  a  boy  of  five  years  whose  chief  interest 
centered  in  sex,  which  became  his  chief  apperception  organ. 

C.  G.  Jung^  gives  a  pathetic  case  of  a  four-year-old  girl  who, 
incited  thereto  by  the  birth  of  a  brother,  developed  moods  of  reverie, 
dreams,  and  manifold  questionings  concerning  where  children  came 
from.  There  were  several  partial  theories  that  evolved  in  her  brain : 
one  was  that  when  old  people  died  they  became  little  children.  When 
asked  just  before  what  she  would  do  if  a  brother  came  that  night, 
she  declared  she  would  kill,  i.  e.,  remove  it.  When  she  first  saw  her 
mother  afterwards,  there  was  dismay  and  a  disposition  to  keep  away, 
and  a  very  cool  reception.  One  theory,  however,  was  that  her 
mother  now  must  die  because  a  new  life  had  come.  Toward  the 
uniformed  nurse  she  was  very  hostile  at  first.  She  insisted  that  the 
brother  did  not  belong  to  her;  treated  her  doll  as  the  nurse  did  the 
baby ;  hummed  reverie  songs  unconsciously  of  a  new  melancholy 
tone,  which  analysis  showed  were  introversions.  Jealousy  was  plain. 
Again,  father  and  mother  were  called  liars.  There  were  many 
questionings  how  the  nurse  got  the  baby,  what  the  mother  had  to  do 
with  it,  whether  she  would  be  like  the  nurse  or  like  the  mother  whom 
she  was  sure  did  not  get  the  child  in  the  same  way  as  the  nurse  did. 
There  was  a  strong  sense  that  something  was  being  concealed  from 
her  and  great  resistance  to  this.  There  were  variour  infantile  de- 
vices for  securing  love  by  force  or  strategy,  such  as  crying  and 
calling  the  mother  by  night,  for  which  the  Messina  earthquake  was 

'  Sanford  Bell,  A  Preliminary  Study  of  the  Emotion  of  Jjovc  Between  the  Sexes. 
Amer.  Jour,  of  Psy.,  July,  IQ02,  vol.  13,  pp.  325-354. 

'  Sigmund  P'reud,  Analyse  dcr  Phobie  eines  filnfjiihrigen  Knalx>n.  Jahrh.  f. 
psychoanalyt.  und  psychopathol.  Forschunf^en,  igo«),  vol.  i,  j)]).  i-io<). 

» Association  Method,  tr.  by  Dr.  A.  A.  Brill,  of  New  York,  Amer.  Jour,  of  Psy., 
April,  igio,  vol.  21,  pp.  201-269. 


444  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

held  responsible.  There  was  great  fear  that  introversion  was  in 
danger  of  becoming  a  neurosis.  Finally,  she  was  told  the  truth  but 
found  it  hard  to  understand  how  the  infant  could  get  out  of  the 
mother's  body  by  itself — it  must  come  from  the  mouth  or  some  open- 
ing in  the  breast — but  this  was  so  hard  to  understand  that  she  fell 
back  to  the  stork  theory  for  a  time.  Slowly  her  curiosity  was 
directed  toward  the  lower  part  of  the  body  and  then  there  was  a 
long  and  persistent  error  which  was  hard  to  control  as  to  the  orifice 
it  emerged  from.  The  child  evolved  a  concept  of  a  big  brother, 
which  seems  to  have  been  to  her  what  her  father  was  to  her  mother. 
This  big  brother  is  brave,  lives  in  dangerous  Italy,  so  that  the  earth- 
quake fear  vanished.  Among  other  children  she  now  became  an 
apostle  of  the  doctrine  that  every  child  grew  in  its  parents.  The 
father  being  ill  one  day  in  bed  was  thought  also  soon  to  have  a 
child.  A  symbolic  dream  of  Noah's  ark,  where  animals  came  out 
from  beneath  instead  of  as  in  her  real  ark  from  a  lid  in  the  top, 
imaged  a  rectification  of  her  own  ideas.  She  soon  developed  a  wish 
to  be  present  with  her  parents  alone  and  sit  up  with  them  late  at 
night,  the  motivation  of  which  of  course  she  did  not  understand. 
Then  came  back  the  earthquake  dreams,  then  a  curiosity  to  see  spring 
when  the  flowers  came  out,  which  she  associated  with  the  way  the 
brother  arrived.  Evidently  the  flowers  and  earthquakes  had  some 
association.  Later  she  began  to  throw  her  doll  into  the  closet  as- 
suming that  thus  she  had  come  nearer  to  the  question  that  was 
agitating  her.  A  favorite  game  was  putting  a  doll  under  her  clothes 
and  drawing  it  out,  which  was  evidently  a  kind  of  question.  She 
associated  a  woman  about  to  bear  a  child  with  a  flower;  proposed 
to  swallow  fruit  to  have  a  baby;  this  marked  the  beginning  of  the 
subconscious  quest  for  the  ulterior  origin  of  babies.  There  were 
several  painful  dreams,  that  she  was  crushed,  buried,  drowned,  show- 
ing that  there  was  again  fear  in  the  air  and  resistance  against  trans- 
position on  the  parents,  showing  that  much  love  was  again  con- 
verted into  fear,  but  now  the  suspicion  was  directed  against  the 
father,  who  must  know  the  secret.  This  is  common  in  dementia 
prcBcox.  It  had  to  be  explained  to  her  that  eyes  were  not  planted  in 
the  head,  for  this  was  the  first  form  of  the  seed  theory.  Many  were 
the  questions  as  to  how  the  baby  got  into  mamma.  Finally,  the  father 
explained  delicately  and  there  was  much  exultation  with  the  assump- 
tion that  she  knew  but  the  mother  did  not.  Out  of  these  elements 
and  the  tensions  may  arise  many  forms  of  precociousness  and 
neurosis,  if  these  complexes  are  not  attended  to.  There  is  great 
suffering  from  errors  here,  but  wisdom  is  very  hard  and  with  feeble 
children  there  is  a  necessity  of  great  discretion.  The  literature  in 
this  field  sheds  much  new  light  upon  the  psychogenesis  in  the  indi- 
vidual. Hereditary  moments  incited  by  the  various  items  of  experi- 
ence pop  up  in  the  most  fragmentary  way,  now  in  a  dream,  now  in  a 
reverie,  now  a  question,  now  a  very  conscious  anxiety  that  may  be 
prolonged   indefinitely,    and   only   after   considerable   time   does   the 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  445 

finished  product  of  clear  and  simple  knowledge  in  this  field  arise. 
Men,  and  especially  women,  are  essentially  organs  of  heredity,  so 
that  this  knowledge  is  of  the  most  vital  consequence  for  life,  and 
plays  a  more  organic  role  in  the  evolution  of  the  soul  than  any  other 
type  of  knowledge. 

The  chief  evidence  of  active  sex  life  in  young  children, 
however,  rests  upon  the  results  of  psycho-analysis,  which  has 
led  P>eud  and  his  now  rapidly  growing  school  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  nearly  all  neuroses,  if  not  most  of  the  psychoses  of 
later  life,  rest  back  upon  and  have  their  ultimate  origin  in  some 
lesion  or  trauma  of  the  vita  sexualis  before  puberty,  perhaps 
averaging  about  the  age  of  eight  or  nine.  It  is  surprising  to 
see  how  many  cases  of  these  disorders,  which  constitute  so 
large  a  part  of  the  literature  of  this  school,  started  in  some 
strong  and  sometimes  sudden  sex  experience  by  which  topics 
in  this  field  were  forced  upon  or  kept  in  mind  in  an  abnormal 
way  or  to  an  excessive  degree.  Nervous  children,  especially 
girls,  and  most  of  all  those  that  are  very  delicate,  if  not 
slightly  neurotic,  are  peculiarly  vulnerable  almost  from  infancy 
to  these  influences.  This  new  conception  now  evolving  is  that 
what  we  have  been  accustomed  to  call  sex  is  a  composite  of 
many  elements,  some  of  which  are  manifest  almost  at  birth, 
and  that  these  components  develop  more  or  less  independently 
at  first,  that  all  tend  to  have  their  fling,  one  after  another,  and 
then  some  are  repressed  by  shame  or  by  censure  and  perhaps 
fall  out  entirely  as  do  some  rudimentary  organs  that  vanish  as 
the  body  grows.  Others  are  only  inhibited  in  their  outward 
manifestations  but  persist,  often  with  great  vigor,  below  con- 
sciousness, where  they  are  in  all  stages  of  submergence,  often 
quite  beyond  the  reach  of  voluntary  attention.  The  rest  of 
these  components  are  during  puberty,  if  it  is  normal,  united 
and  organized  together  under  the  leadership  of  the  sexual 
zone  and  become  known  as  sexual.  These  components  as  they 
exist  in  children  consist  of  what  is  common  to  Ixith  sexes  and 
constitute,  then,  sex  neuters,  and  they  can  later  enter  into  the 
constellations  of  either  sex,  though  in  different  projx)rtions. 
These  components  have  their  outcrop  in  specific  traits,  e.  g.. 
passionate  sucking  (Lutchcn,  Ludcln.  and  W'omic-saugcn), 
interest  in  all  that  pertains  to  both  excrementations,  various 
auto-eroticisms  which  may  later  evolve  into  self-abuse.    Then 


446  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

from  being  self-caused  these  propensities  take  on  more  ob- 
jective forms,  chiefly  three:  (i)  extreme  aggressiveness,  which 
may  on  the  one  hand  sink  to  sadism  or  be  subHmated  and 
spirituaHzed  into  creativeness,  originaHty,  later  on;  (2)  ab- 
normal passivity,  receptivity,  which  may  lapse  to  masochism 
or  the  desire  to  suffer  pain  and  rise  to  heights  of  receptivity, 
even  to  divine  influences;  (3)  exhibitionism  or  the  impulse  to 
show  off,  which  has  many  high  and  low  forms.  Each  of  these 
crude  instincts  may  act  more  or  less  erethically  and  become  an 
independent  source  of  pleasure,  which  is  at  bottom  or  else 
merges  over  into  libido.  Nothing  is  so  plastic  as  these  ele- 
ments, for  in  themselves  and  in  their  combinations  they  con- 
tain the  very  best  and  the  very  poorest  traits  of  human  nature. 
If  the  great  extension  of  our  former  views  concerning  sex 
thus  called  for  is  correct,  then  the  young  child  is  in  a  sense 
even  more  dominated  by  sex  components  than  the  adolescent, 
for  there  are  more  of  them  since  some  are  eliminated  or  re- 
pressed before  the  age  of  reconstruction  and  they  are  both 
unconscious  and  independent,  and  hence  are  stronger.  Again, 
for  these  reasons  they  are  far  more  prone  to  lapse  to  physical 
disease,  the  symptoms  of  which  are  precipitations  of  erotic 
feeling.  All  the  horrible  perversions  of  sex,  too,  are  only 
exaggerations  or  aggravations  of  tendencies  normal  to  every 
child,  whereas,  on  the  other  hand,  art,  science,  religion,  all  of 
them  are  surrogate  satisfactions.  Thus,  only  part  of  the 
original  libido  factors  are  organized  to  conserve  the  function 
of  procreation,  and  the  rest  make  up  the  greater  part  of  human 
weal  or  woe.  If  these  new  views  are  correct,  it  follows  that 
sex  pedagogy  must  not  only  begin  in  the  cradle  but  is  cardinal 
for  the  education  of  the  feelings,  will,  and  intellect,  and  that  sex, 
not  as  we  now  know  it  but  in  this  larger  sense,  contains  the 
promise  and  potency  of  life,  that  the  complete  man  or  woman 
is  a  complicated  product  of  many  devices  that  are  slowly 
wrought  out  during  many  metamorphoses  in  order  to  accom- 
plish in  the  end  the  one  and  supreme  goal  of  life,  viz.,  the  gen- 
eration of  our  kind.  From  the  first  moment  after  birth,  Nature 
begins  to  prepare  the  infant  for  future  parenthood  and  all  else 
is  secondary  and  tributary  to  this.  To  those  who  study  this 
new  dispensation  of  sex  and  do  not  know  children  in  a  deep 
and  all-sided  way,  it  seems  unwarranted ;  nor  to  those  alienists 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  447 

who  think  that  the  patient  can  judge  of  his  own  states  of  mind 
rather  than  that  their  interpretation  is  the  goal,  will  this  seem 
satisfactory;  nor  will  it  to  those  who  think  that  if  we  admit 
that  sex  perversions  originate  in  germ  in  all  young  children, 
our  thoughts  of  them  are  necessarily  degraded.  But  to  those 
who  understand  how  idealism  and  imagination  root  in  sex, 
as  does  most  that  is  best  in  adult  life,  this  view  will  exalt  and 
ennoble  childhood.  This  is  not  the  place  for  details  concerning 
the  psychological  view  that  has  brought  more  unity  and  in- 
sight into  the  very  nature  and  operations  of  the  soul,  and  the 
mechanism  of  the  conscience  than  any  other  in  our  generation. 
It  marks  the  end  of  the  old  and  the  dawn  of  a  new  era.  It  is 
the  most  triumphant  vindication  of  the  genetic  mode  of  con- 
ceiving the  mind  and  marks  an  epoch  in  psychogenesis.  This 
is  true  quite  apart  from  its  bearings  upon  sex,  for  it  includes 
a  far  wider  domain  which  cannot  even  be  glanced  at  here. 
Into  the  whole  domain  of  sex,  however,  it  brings  sudden  order 
and  harmony  by  showing  the  relations  between  the  dififerent 
morbid  manifestations  among  themselves  and  between  these  and 
normal  activities  and  coordinates  many  factors,  the  bearings 
of  which  were  before  entirely  unknown,  obviates  persistent 
misunderstandings  for  both  health  and  disease,  and  gives  sex, 
which  had  been  neglected  by  all  contemptuously  and  dismissed 
by  some  psychologists  as  of  the  slightest  significance,  its  right- 
ful and  dominant  place. 

Prepubertal  sex  pedagogy,  therefore,  has  its  own  peculiar 
problems,  some  of  which,  however,  can  hardly  be  stated  def- 
initely save  in  a  medical  treatise.  In  general  the  inculcation 
is  to  avoid  all  erethic  states,  even  in  the  nursery,  beginning 
with  those  of  sucking  itself,  which  the  rubber  nipple  very  dis- 
tinctly favors.  I'arents  must  realize  that  the  masturbatory 
diathesis  may  lie  cultivated  by  excessive  coddling,  by  frictions 
anywhere,  esi)ecially  pattings  and  strokings  that  tend  to  cres- 
cendo or  culminating  sensations.  Habitual  constipation,  too, 
is  a  direct  provocative  and  can  sometimes  1k'  more  or  less 
voluntary  even  if  unconscious  in  the  interests  of  these  hedonic 
physical  exjK*riences.  Coprophilic  tendencies  have  jierhaps  a 
natural  place  and  stage  but  they  normally  soon  abate  beyond 
the  power  of  a  revival  even  by  disease.  Intense  spasms  of 
feeling  and  emotion,  periods  of  phrenetic  aggressiveness,  pave 


448  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

the  way  for  erogenisms.  The  love  of  being  handled  may  be- 
come abnormal  and  in  such  cases  has  its  own  dangers.  Nudity 
is  often  a  passion  of  children  and  has  a  unique  pedagogic 
value  of  its  own  in  its  place  which  the  Spartans,  who  required 
periodic  stripping  to  see  whether  youth  were  vigorous  and 
virtuous,  perhaps  understood  how  to  utilize.  Freud  has  him- 
self dealt  with  some  aspects  of  this  topic.^  He  has  little  sym- 
pathy with  the  fear  that  simple  explanations  made  to  young 
children  will  awaken  premature  or  abnormal  interest  but 
thinks  concealment  particularly  calculated  to  do  this.  It  is 
false  that  children  have  no  interest  or  intelligence  for  these 
matters  unless  it  be  artificially  awakened.  Nor  would  he  have 
this  instruction  conveyed  indirectly.  In  an  interesting  letter, 
Multatuli  (edited  ^by  W.  Spohr,  1906),  although  admitting 
that  thought  should  be  kept  pure,  recognizes  that  this  is  im- 
possible under  present  conditions,  and  urges  that  children 
strongly  and  early  come  to  feel  that  something  is  being  con- 
cealed from  them,  and  therefore  their  curiosity  is  kept  at  un- 
wholesomely  high  pitch  and  that  this  artificial  tension  both 
heats  the  feeling  and  corrupts  the  fancy.  Parents,  he  says, 
live  in  a  fool's  paradise.  The  parts  directly  involved  are  by  no 
means  the  only  ones  in  children  that  mediate  sex  sensations, 
which  are  often  auto-erotic.  Now  it  is  the  excessive  develop- 
ments of  these  uncorrelated  elements  and  the  errors  in  their 
pubertal  organization  that  cause  perversions  and  neuroticisms 
later  and  but  for  Geheimtuerei  many  of  these  dangers  could 
be  avoided.  The  zest  of  the  child  for  the  riddles  of  this  aspect 
of  life  are  awakened  very  early.  They  should  not  be  repressed 
too  abruptly  by  being  called  dirty  or  guilty. 

Perhaps  next  to  interest  in  organs  is  the  problem  of  the 
origin  of  children.  Here  Freud  quotes  a  letter  of  a  motherless 
girl  of  eleven  and  a  half  to  her  aunt,  asking  with  the  greatest 
naivete  whether  the  stork  found  children  in  the  ditch  and  if  so, 
why  they  are  never  seen  there  and  ending,  "  I  beg  you,  write  to 

^  Sigmund  Freud :  Zur  sexuellen  Aufklarung  der  Kinder.  Soziale  Medizin  und 
Hygiene,  1907,  vol.  2,  pp.  360-367.  Die  infantile  Sexualitat,in  Drei  Abhandlungen 
zur  Sexualtheorie.  Deuticke,  Leipzig,  1905,  83  p.  Origin  and  Development  of 
Psychoanalysis.  Amer.  Jour,  of  Psy.,  April,  1910,  vol.  21,  pp.  181-200.  Uber  infan- 
tile Sexualtheorien.  Mutterschutz,  1908,  vol.  4,  pp.  763-776.  Charakter  und 
Analerotik.  Psy.-neur.  Wochenschrift,  1908,  vol.  9,  pp.  465-467. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  449 

me  fully,  for  you  surely  know  where  they  come  from."  Later 
this  little  writer  became  neurotic  and  psycho-analysis  showed 
that  one  element  in  her  neuroses  was  the  imperative  Griibclsucht 
concerning  these  more  or  less  unconscious  questions.  The  in- 
tense natural  craving  for  knowledge  at  this  stage  is  probably 
universal,  and  how  rarely  it  is  met  is  illustrated  by  the  case  of 
a  lady  teacher  in  the  grades  who  found  on  her  desk  a  letter 
signed  round-robinwise  by  five  of  her  best  girls  from  ten  to 
twelve  years  old,  which  read,  "  Please  explain  to  us  how  men 
originate."  The  teacher  was  confounded  and  did  not  know 
what  to  do.  She  finally  took  the  note  to  the  master.  He 
thought  it  too  grave  a  question  to  deal  with  upon  his  own 
authority  and  took  it  to  the  superintendent.  The  superintend- 
ent was  no  less  nonplused  and  appealed  to  the  school  commit- 
tee, who  after  sapient  deliberations,  suggested  that  the  teacher 
ask  the  parents  of  these  girls  to  answer  the  question  to  their 
daughters.  These  school  authorities  felt  themselves  either  too 
timid,  too  ignorant,  or  unauthorized  to  give  the  desired  in- 
formation. 

Love  and  hunger  are  often  called  the  two  master  impulses 
of  life.  The  food  quest  absorbs  a  large  part  of  the  time  and 
energy  of  animals  and  of  men.  This  has  long  been  under- 
stood ;  but  only  very  lately,  thanks  to  many  special  studies,  are 
we  realizing  that  the  constellation  of  sex  activities  takes  a 
hitherto  undreamed-of  proportion  of  energy  for  its  solution 
during  all  the  years  of  most  rapid  physical  and  mental  growth. 
In  no  field  is  ignorance  so  dense,  and  false  explanations  that 
have  to  be  tediously  rectified  or  painfully  moulted,  so  many. 
The  stork  legend  and  a  score  of  foolish  nursery  inventions  on 
this  plane  that  appear  in  our  questionnaire  returns  are  at  first 
accepted  as  an  answer  to  the  most  vital  and  first  of  all  the  great 
questions  which  the  child  puts  its  parents  with  a  faith  so  im- 
plicit that,  wiien  these  silly  answers  begin  to  be  doubted,  a  deep 
distrust  of  father  and  mother  is  implanted.  They  have  given 
a  false  answer  to  the  most  serious  of  all  the  questions  children 
ask  them.  Some  children  oscillate  for  months  and  years  be- 
tween accepting  the  myths  given  them  on  parental  authority 
and  some  other  explanation  of  the  street,  perhajjs  very  offensive 
to  them,  and  weak  ones  often  grow  neurotic  under  the  strain. 
Some  become  clever  detectives  and  cross-examine   wherever 

30 


45°  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

they  can  to  find  out  if  their  parents  Hed,  and  continue  to  change, 
modify,  and  perhaps  revolutionize  their  conchisions  in  this  field 
for  a  long  time.  Often  the  alternative  view  that  the  child  came 
from  some  aperture  in  the  mother's  body  is  put  in  so  revolting 
a  form  that  they  cling  to  the  stork  type  of  theory  long  after 
they  should  have  known  better,  and  are  more  or  less  stultified 
thereby.  Sooner  or  later  even  the  neglected  or  self-taught 
child  is  convinced  that  its  parents  deliberately  lied  to  it  and 
complotted  to  do  so. 

Now  arises  the  question  why  they  did  it;  and  here  begins 
another  train  of  psychic  processes  which  may  undermine  love 
and  respect  and,  especially  with  neurotic  children,  may  lead 
to  the  view  that  they  are  not  true  offspring  of  their  parents. 
The  child  is  now  launched  upon  a  troubled  and  pathless  sea. 
Where  do  babies  come  from  now  that  the  testimony  of  the 
parents  is  proven  false?  Or  are  the  new  theories  veracious? 
Almost  incredible  are  the  number  of  tentative  hypotheses 
taken  up  and  then  abandoned,  involving  a  large  amount  of 
merely  unconscious  cerebration  that  might  have  been  better 
used.  It  is  all  so  strange,  secret,  incredible ;  and  especially  to 
girls  as  they  often  hear  it,  is  nauseating  and  perhaps  cruel  to 
certain  souls;  and  to  most  in  some  modes,  the  monstrous  and 
distorted  new  ideas  darken  and  sadden  life.  Children  cannot 
realize  that  they  were  .born  as  they  are  told ;  and  the  mother, 
and  later  the  father,  when  his  agency  is  known,  seem  degraded 
by  the  sex  relation.  Children  often  openly  resent  the  thought 
of  all  such  practices  by  their  parents ;  while  at  the  same  time 
sometimes  secretly  spying  and  trying  to  find  out.  At  this 
stage,  if  too  much  is  too  suddenly  seen,  weak  nervous  systems 
are  sometimes  indelibly  wounded  thereby. 

By  the  dawn  of  the  school  age,  the  child  is  already  usually 
alert,  conscious  and  curious,  boys  more  openly,  girls  more 
covertly.  Both  accumulate  a  considerable  body  of  misinfor- 
mation which  must  be  slowly  and  tediously  worn  away  by 
growing  knowledge.  I  would  not  say,  with  my  former  German 
teacher  of  physiology,  that  two  thirds  of  the  total  psychic 
processes  of  boys  are  for  years  concerned  with  sex  directly 
or  indirectly;  but  the  amount  of  mentation  that  goes  on  in 
this  field  is  incredible  to  most.  We  adults  forget  it  because 
new  insights  have  submerged  the  traces  of  old  vagaries  as  in 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  451 

no  other  domain.  Moreover,  the  type  of  psychic  activity  is 
uniquely  intimate  and  as  unconscious  as  it  is  intense.  Again, 
psycho-analysis  which  penetrates  down  to  the  earliest  strata  of 
psychic  evolution  always  finds  it,  and  the  psycho-analyses  con- 
serve these  lost  stages  of  development  in  which  these  patients 
have  been  arrested  and  which  are  magnified.  Thus  the  long 
catalogue  of  errors  that  uninstructed  youth  sometimes  go 
through  touching  sex  and  reproduction  are  not  only  pathetic, 
but  they  are  instructive  as  furnishing  the  key  to  many  of  the 
perversions  in  this  domain.  These  latter  are  so  manifold  that 
the  vast  body  of  clinical  literature  now  in  evidence  seems  to 
compel  us  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  act  or  object  that 
has  not  in  it  some  individual  or  race  phallic  significance  or 
been  sexually  erethic.  All  the  sex  aberrations  are  now  pretty 
well  explained  by  their  genesis,  in  some  stage  of  which  they 
all  arise  by  arrest  and  magnification  which,  when  traced  to  its 
source,  is  found  due  to  an  overstress  of  some  one  instrument 
in  the  sex  symphony  or  an  arrest  at  some  one  of  the  many 
phases  that  not  only  abnormally  but  probably  normally  must 
precede  full  maturity.  All  these  facts  certainly  teach  us  that 
this  vital  department  of  human  life  is  more  or  less  disorgan- 
ized or  at  least  threatened  with  decadence  and  needs  special 
attention. 

There  are  very  many  children,  having  learned  that  babies 
emerge  from  orifices  of  the  parental  body,  who  build  up  elab- 
orate and  fantastic  theories  that  they  come  from  the  mouth, 
ears,  nose,  etc.,  in  ways  that  seem  to  adult  common  sense  like 
the  systematized  delusions  of  certain  paranoiacs.  Another 
group  of  weird  theories  centers  in  the  question  of  how  the 
mother  gets  the  baby ;  and  here  cluster  another  felted  or  plank- 
tonlike mass  of  foolish  speculations :  by  eating  certain  food,  by 
prayer,  washing,  wishing,  certain  exercises,  regimen,  visiting 
certain  places,  performing  certain  religious  ceremonials.  Al- 
most numberless  are  the  popular  ideas  still  inund  among  the 
lowest  savages  concerning  the  immaculate  conception ;  and  not 
a  few  of  these  have  their  recrudescence  in  the  children  of 
to-day.  Then  comes  the  long  labor  of  soul  t()  find  out  just 
what  the  father  does  and  wliat  paternity  means. 

Strange  things  occur  in  the  soul  during  this  ferment. 
Sweet  and  innocent  young  maidens  spin  reveries  that  tiieir 


452  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

father  may  have  been  some  other  man — a  great  prince  maybe 
— and  that  the  fathers  of  their  brothers  and  sisters  were  still 
other  noble  personages,  with  no  thought  of  what  this  would 
imply  as  to  their  mother's  character  or  conduct.  Indeed,  the 
whole  psychology  of  sex  is  full  of  flaring  absurdities,  contra- 
dictions, and  partial  views  now  filling  the  whole  horizon  of 
consciousness  and  then  alternating  to  an  opposite  standpoint 
as  the  old  one  is  abandoned.  There  are  feelings  that  are  in- 
sistent; and  then  comes  a  psychic  ebb,  and  the  contradictory 
mood  becomes  supreme.  Here  resolutions  are  frequent  and 
made  with  all  kinds  of  solemn  vows  but  they  are  most  fragile. 
Insights  for  the  moment  most  satisfying  are  in  another  aban- 
doned with  aversion.  No  instinct  is  so  little  in  need  of  instruc- 
tion in  regard  to  pragmatic  essentials,  but  none  is  so  blind  and 
aberrant  in  all  else.  In  no  domain  is  infraction  of  convention 
so  seriously  punished ;  yet  perhaps  in  no  field  does  sin  and  vice 
so  abound.  Hence,  tension  due  to  impulse  on  the  one  hand, 
and  to  restraint  and  repression  on  the  other,  is  so  great.  Just 
here  lies  the  strain. 

As  a  result  of  such  oppositions  arises  another  psychic 
peculiarity  found  nowhere  else  to  such  a  degree :  viz.,  the 
effective  submergence  of  experience.  With  every  step  in  ad- 
vance, both  in  insight  and  information,  something,  and  per- 
haps much,  has  to  be  utterly  tabooed,  things  which  society  will 
not  tolerate  and  which  must  remain  absolutely  unspoken  to 
one's  nearest  and  dearest  friends.  Thus  much  that  has  been  in 
the  very  focus  of  attention  and  interest  is  evicted,  and  the 
psyche  burrows  and  buries  its  own  dead.  Thus,  an  unwelcome 
content  of  mind  is  forbidden,  is  not  reverted  to,  is  soon  sub- 
merged and  forgotten  almost  as  completely  as  if  it  had  never 
been ;  only  in  rare  cases  can  it  be  resuscitated  in  some  hypnoid 
state  in  order  to  vicariate  in  consciousness  for  a  neurosis  which 
its  suppression  caused.  Having  found  the  way  and  the  truth, 
the  abortive  ways  are  barred.  And  just  so  the  race  at  the 
stage  of  some  prehistoric  renaissance  carefully  scoured  away 
all  the  traces  it  could  of  the  old  phallic  religions  that  once 
covered  the  earth  and  were  the  apperception  organs  that  gave 
sex  to  everything  and  interpreted  all  phenomena  sexually.  It 
is  the  benign  influence  of  modesty  and  shame  that  conceals 
and  seeks  to  obliterate.  ^  Thus,  children  in  the  very  earliest 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  453 

teens  have  already  forgotten  very  much  here ;  and  a  good  deal 
of  suppressed  knowledge  that  they  once  treasured  has  slowly 
been  consigned  to  oblivion. 

I  often  see  girls  of  circa  twelve  who  go  about  very 
quietly,  seem  demure  and  often  absent-minded,  with  spells  of 
relative  indifference  to  things  once  of  great  interest  to  them, 
who  are  silent  in  the  presence  of  adults  and  yet  gravitate  to- 
ward them  for  companionship  in  these  moods.  They  are  un- 
responsive, rather  imperturbable,  often  apparently  lolling, 
listless,  self-centered,  poised,  rather  repellent  of  confidences 
and  approaches  as  if  on  their  guard  against  self-betrayal. 
They  have  no  suspicion  of  what  is  going  on  in  their  souls; 
though  so  absorbing  is  it  that  there  is  no  part  of  the  soul  left 
to  look  on  with  or  to  remember  with.  But  analyses  and 
neuroses  betray  this  triply  guarded  secret :  they  are  brooding 
over  great  biological  questions  of  the  origin  of  life,  sex,  death, 
their  own  relations  to  their  parents  and  brothers,  musing 
about  marriage,  about  how  to  get  at  the  truth  to  both  escape 
and  to  penetrate  the  mesh  of  conventional  lies  of  every  sort 
culminating  with  those  of  sex  with  which  they  are  encom- 
passed. What  and  whom  can  they  actually  trust?  What  is 
really  and  truly  so,  "  sure  as  you  live,"  "  with  your  hand  on 
your  heart,"  "  by  the  sign  of  the  cross  "  ?  How  shall  they 
know  the  truth  of  the  truth,  what  they  most  of  all  want  to 
learn ;  and  how  can  they  do  so  without  asking  and  being  i)ut 
to  shame,  or  without  seeming  ignorant  when,  in  fact.  ])erhai)s 
all  assume  that  they  do  know  ?  They  ought  and  perhaps  do 
sometimes  blush  in  secret  to  think  of  these  things ;  but  they 
cannot  escape  the  insistent  questionings.  How  can  their 
elders  be  so  blithe  and  cheery  if  the  world  is  as  they  arc  be- 
ginning to  divine  it?  How  they  muse  on  certain  half-inci- 
dental words  or  allusions  let  fall  by  the  growi^-ups.  which 
answer  perhaps  some  of  their  mute  longings:  while  all  the 
rest  of  the  wiser  talk  washes  over  them  unnoted  and  leaving 
no  trace!  These  pregnant  suggestions  are  pondered  in  the 
heart;  and  thus  the  girl  slowly  orients  her  way  to  wisdom  by 
them,  constantly  casting  old  knowledge  once  thought  precious 
as  rubbish  to  the  void.  She  will  reach  the  goal  in  the  end :  but 
how  vastly  much  might  have  lx*en  saved  her  by  a  little  plain, 
sane  teaching  lietimes?     And  how  this  long  stage,   which   is 


454  EDUCATIONAL    PR.OBLEMS 

throughout   so   very   vuhierable   to  shock,   might   have   been 
shortened  and  facihtated ! 

Whether  they  are  saved  to  virtue  or  lost  to  vice  often  de- 
pends upon  their  getting  or  faihng  to  get  the  knowledge  their 
whole  souls  are  consciously  or  unconsciously  seeking. 

"  Friihlings  Erwachen,"  by  Wedekind  (translated  by  F.  J.  Zieg- 
ler)  is  a  dramatically  clumsy  attempt  to  present  the  tragedy  of  ado- 
lescence for  girls  who  '*  did  not  know."  The  action  represents  the 
very  crisis  of  puberty,  utterly  ignorant,  utterly  naive,  and  after  the 
tragic  results  the  girl,  who  dies,  dismalizes  her  mother's  life  by  re- 
proaching her  that  she  had  not  been  told.  G.  Compayre  ^  commenting 
on  this  thinks  with  Kant,  that  sex  instruction  should  largely  be  an 
object  of  public  and  social  training,  and  so  highly  commends  the 
French  league  of  doctors  and  families,  and  the  society  for  moral 
prophylaxis.  Both  lay  great  stress  upon  what  is  designated  by  the 
Anglo-Saxon  term,  self-control. 

Thus,  children's  minds,  in  fact,  are  very  fertile  as  well  as 
active  here,  and  they  very  often  develop  ideas  which  later  cause 
great  trouble.  Often  strong  natures  come  into  more  or  less 
open  rebellion  against  parents'  authority  on  other  matters  on 
account  of  concealment  or  deception  here.  Some  torture 
themselves  in  secret  and  devise  the  most  grotesque  and  absurd 
explanations,  which  they  whisper  to  each  other  with  some  sense 
of  shame  and  guilt,  and  this  lays  the  foundations  for  regard- 
ing these  matters  as  repulsive  and  perhaps  nauseating  later. 
These  infantile  theories  ought  to  be  systematically  collected 
and  evaluated.  Nearly  all  lose  their  way  for  a  time,  at  least, 
and  wander  often  with  great  risk  and  waste  of  energy  before 
they  learn  the  simple  right  way  of  nature.  Here  very  many 
parents  and  writ'^rs  are  exceedingly  clumsy  and  ignorant. 
Freud  highly  commends  Emma  Eckstein  in  "  Die  Sexualfrage 
in  der  Erziehung  des  Kindes,"  1904.  Most  parents  reserve 
explanation  till  the  latest  moment,  and  then  give  it  in  solemn 
words  that  are  themselves  a  little  misleading,  so  that  instead 
of  learning  all  as  they  wish  to  children  must  have  recourse  to 
forbidden  ways.  Thought  is  very  often  very  greatly  intimi- 
dated in  this  way.  One  little  boy  was  overheard  saying  to  his 
younger  sister,  "  How  can  you  imagine  the  stork  brings  chil- 

^Les  Adolescents  au  Theatre  et  I'Education  de  la  Puberty.  L'Educateur 
Modeme,  1909,  vol.  4,  pp.  3-14. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  455 

dren  when  you  know  that  man  is  a  mammal?  Do  you  think 
the  stork  brings  their  children  to  other  mammals?"  Expla- 
nations should  certainly  be  given  before  ten  or  before  children 
leave  the  Volksschule,  and  still  further  explanation  should  be 
connected  with  confirmation.  The  French  are  now  substitut- 
ing for  the  catechism  an  elementary  book  which  introduces 
the  child  into  civic  life  but,  strange  to  say,  there  is  a  great 
gap  here.  The  clergy  will  never  recognize  the  close  relation 
of  man  to  animals  because  they  are  always  thinking  that  man 
has  an  immortal  soul  and  that  unless  he  is  as  widely  differ- 
entiated as  possible  from  brutes  the  foundations  of  moral  train- 
ing cannot  be  properly  laid.  There  ought  to  be  a  rather  fun- 
damental reform  in  this  respect. 

A.  Moll,^  another  of  the  most  eminent  experts  in  this  field,  says 
that  all  must  realize  that  children  can  no  longer  ^''  brought  up  in 
ignorance  of  sex  matters,  which  filter  in  upon  their  minds  through 
very  many  and  very  often  extremely  obnoxious  and  suggestive  ways. 
He  blames  religious  teachers  for  not  doing  their  duty.  He  thinks  that 
under  conditions  of  modern  life  the  somatic  signs  of  puberty  afford 
no  reliable  indication  of  whether  or  not  the  intelligence  has  reached 
this  period,  which  it  often  does  long  before  it  should.  He  would 
trace  botanical  and  zoological  processes  and  wisely  says  that  the 
child's  questions  are  the  very  best  guide  for  all  the  stages  and  dates, 
deploring  the  fact  that  many  who  wish  to  teach  these  subjects  are 
densely  ignorant  and  some  are  spreading  noxious  errors. 

Sexual  Eclaircissemcnt  for  Delicate  Older  Girls. — The  evi- 
dence is  now  overwhelming  that  sexual  eclaircissemcnt  is  an 
extremely  critical  matter  for  modern  girls  of  nervous  di- 
athesis. The  first  knowledge  of  parturition  and  still  more  of 
the  act  of  fecundation  is  liable  to  come  to  them  as  a  shock  that 
causes  intense  disgu.st  and  aversion.  To  delicate  girls  in  the 
earliest  teens  the  physical  relation  of  the  sexes  often  seems 
almost  incredibly  bestial  and  not  infrequently  fills  them  not 
only  with  disenchantment,  but  with  positive  repugnance  to- 
ward the  ojjposite  sex.  All  their  instincts  and  previous 
training  in  modesty  and  shame  seem  outraged  and  sonic  girls 
in  our  returns  when  reluctantly  convinced,  show  abatement 
of  attachment  for  their  own  fathers  for  a  time  and  sometimes 

'  Sexuellc  Erzichung.  Zeits.  fUr  pid.  Psy.,  Path,  und  Hygirnc,  1908,  vol.  10, 
pp.  145-216. 


456  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

express  pathetic  sympathy  for  their  mothers  as  victims  of 
briitaUty.  Full  eclaircisscinent  may  occupy  a  number  of  years  ^ 
and  with  some  it  is  a  very  serious  matter  to  effect  complete 
reconciliation  with  the  facts  of  life,  and  a  few  never  achieve 
thereafter  complete  affirmation  of  the  will  to  live,  or  find  it 
hard  to  accept  things  as  they  are.  My  own  data  incline  me 
to  agree  with  Freud  and  his  followers  that  psycho-sexual  trau- 
mata may  become  the  cause  of  very  grave  disorders  later, 
even  if  they  are  not  always  quite  so  unconscious,  so  general, 
or  so  early  as  he  thinks.  He  lays  stress  upon  the  nervous 
strain  due  to  the  forced  association  of  sex  with  repulsive 
excremental  processes;  but  this  would  surely  be  greatest  if  it 
came  early.  On  no  subject,  perhaps  even  religion,  is  men- 
tal equilibrium  so  likely  to  be  upset,  if  knowledge  is  given 
before  the  mind  is  ripe  for  the  mental  digestion  that  is  neces- 
sary. The  sudden,  accidental  envisagement  by  exceptional 
experiences  or  too  pragmatic  and  early  descriptions  may  read- 
ily become  the  submerged  nucleus  of  grave  perturbances ;  and 
here  our  questionnaire  returns  suggest  to  me  a  source  of  dis- 
turbance which  I  think  not  adequately  described  or  even 
recognized  by  the  Freudians  or  others,  as  follows :  Many  of 
the  psychic  prelusions  of  sex  just  before  the  age  of  first  men- 
struation are  not  at  all  associated  in  the  girl's  mind  with 
specific  anatomical  or  functional  changes.  They  are  simply 
rich  and  strong  new  tides  of  sentiment.  The  other  sex  acquires 
new  interest  though  perhaps  more  at  a  distance.  Love  is  ideal- 
ized in  purity,  heroism,  romance,  and  suffuses  life  with  a 
golden  haze.  If  it  focuses  in  a  person,  it  is  innocent;  and 
even  if  there  are  occasional  acts  of  endearment,  they  are  chaste 
and  immaculate.  There  is  reverie,  dreamery,  perhaps  of  ulti- 
mate mating  with  some  paragon  of  masculine  virtue,  fancied 
pictures  of  beauty,  adornment,  devotion,  and  service.  Every 
religious  feeling  and  aspiration  is  greatly  enhanced  and  the 
soul  is  .  on  tiptoe  of  faith,  expectation,  desire  to  embody 
every  physical,  mental,  and  moral  attribute  of  womanhood  and 
of  the  race  in  one's  own  personality.  Now,  when  into  this 
ecstatic  paradisaical  state,  the  crass,  brutal  facts  of  sex  are 

'  See  a  rather  typical  and  not  abnormal  case  in  E.  Stielil's  Eine  Mutterpflicht. 
Sccmann,  Leipzig,  1902,  46  p.  Also  H.  Fiirth's  Die  geschlechtliche  Aufklarung 
in  Haus  und  in  Schule.     Frauen-Rundschau,  Leipzig,  n.  d.,  44  p. 


THE    PEDAGOGY    OF    SEX  457 

suddenly  forced  by  accident  or  by  the  advances  of  a  gross 
lover,  or  even  by  something  read  or  told  by  some  elder  friend, 
it  may  be  with  the  pedagogical  passion  that  all  must  know  it, 
this  sometimes  comes  with  effects  that  may  almost  be  described 
as  a  psychic  outrage  of  a  vestal  or  nun.  There  are  tears, 
lacerations  as  the  heart  revolts  toward  men,  resolutions  it  may 
l>e  of  perpetual  celibacy  and  disenchantment  with  life  gener- 
ally. Many  now  feel  at  least  momentary  impulsion  to  make 
a  great  renunciation.  Love  has  perhaps  begun  to  bourgeon, 
even  if  all  unconsciously,  and  it  is  now  reversed  or  general- 
ized it  may  be  toward  philanthropy,  and  there  is  a  sense  of  be- 
ing blighted  and  all  this  goes  on  with  only  partial  consciousness 
of  it.  This,  as  abundant  records  show,  is  for  some  girls  in  the 
teens  who  are  exotically  sensitive  by  birth  and  overrefined  by 
nurture,  almost  like  the  apparition  of  a  mocking,  horned, 
hoofed  and  tailed  devil  in  Eden.  Healthful  souls  would  per- 
haps in  time  digest  almost  any  such  experience  and  even 
delicate  ones  would  do  so,  if  insight  came  gradually  without 
too  much  shock.  Weakly  girls,  however,  may  now  acquire  a 
coital  or  parturition  phobia  that,  opposed  as  it  is  to  all  the 
deep  instincts  of  a  woman's  nature  for  mating  and  maternity, 
precipitates  internal  conflicts  that  pervade  both  the  conscious 
and  the  unconscious  spheres  of  life  and  involve  incalculable 
waste  and  sometimes  permanent  disequilibration.  Thus  for 
many  a  slender  girl,  perhaps  a  trifle  an;cmic,  who  has  not 
achieved  a  full  and  complete  development,  internal  and  ex- 
ternal, who  suffers  and  who  has  general  nervousness  of  what- 
ever kind  and  cause,  is  very  prone  to  center  the  s])here  of 
those  functions  connected  with  the  transmission  (^f  life  and 
from  that  as  a  focus  it  irradiates  on  occasion  into  the  spheres 
of  nutrition,  circulation,  respiration,  or  mentation,  may  cause 
some  new  somnambulic  phenomena,  dissociation,  convulsions, 
contractures,  anaesthesias,  fundamental  paralysis,  flxcd  ideas, 
stigmata,  tics  of  many  kinds,  etc.  Happily  the  weaklings  who 
show  these  extremes  are  still  relatively  few.  although  their 
proportion  seems  to  1^  steadily  increasing. 

Or.    M.    .\.    Cleaves  '   says   that   young  girls  and    women 

'  Kducilion  in  Srxual  HyKicnr  f()r  Y«)unK  Working  W(ini«ii.  Ch.iriliis  .wxl  llu- 
Commons,  i(>o6,  vol.  15,  |)|).  721-724.  Sco  also  Dr.  F-'.  C.  X'.iltiilinr:  l.iliKalion 
in  Sexual  Subjtxts.      N.  Y.  Medical  Journal,  1906,  vol.  83,   pp.  27^-278.     .Mso 


458  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

shrink  from  all  discussion  of  such  matters,  and  as  a  result 
their  ignorance  and  credulity  make  them  easy  victims.  They 
little  suspect  the  risk  to  which  they  commit  themselves.  Young 
working  women  are  generally  strong  enough  to  face  the  truth 
and,  if  so,' it  should  be  taught  without  bated  breath,  biologic- 
ally, and  as  one  of  the  most  interesting,  beautiful,  and  sacred 
of  things.  The  bare  facts  are  never  enough.^  Some  business 
firms  employing  many  girls  also  employ  one  or  more  physi- 
cians to  make  themselves  gratuitously  serviceable.  Women's 
clubs  should  study  this  problem.  Assuming  that  a  new  sex 
ethics  may  impend  it  must  come  very  slow  and  the  darker  side 
of  sexuality,  which  may  well  try  the  nerve  of  an  expert,  should 
not  be  overstressed.  Nowhere  is  greater  tact  and  caution 
necessary.  From  this  we  can  see  that  sex  pedagogy  with 
slightly  premature,  delicate  girls  is  often  a  very  grave  problem, 
quite  distinct  from  that  for  thoroughly  healthful  ones  and  for 
all  the  sex  radically  dififerent  from  that  which  boys  require. 
Nature  doubtless  indicates  that  the  period  of  idealism  should 
have  its  fling  unperturbed  by  all  that  seems  gross.  Pragma- 
tists  on  the  other  hand,  urge  that  the  fleshly  facts  be  taught 
first  before  puberty  and  that  they  have  the  right  of  way,  even 
if  the  wings  of  the  later  idealism  are  clipped  a  little,  and  that 
unbridled  romance  is  dangerous  because  of  the  perils  of  the 
rude  awakening  to  which  it  may  be  subjected.  Here,  how- 
ever, we  are  hard  up  against  the  limits  of  present  knowledge 
and  perhaps  the  best  that  can  be  said  is  that  each  girl  should 
be  a  problem  by  herself.  Most,  however,  do  and  will  now  learn 
the  worst  before  puberty  and  will  yet  idealize  after  it  comes 
and  associate  and  coordinate  between  the  two  in  some  way 
later  as  best  they  may.  Thus,  the  task  of  the  instructor, 
whether  parent  or  teacher,  is  to  accept  the  inevitable  situation 
and  see  that  knowledge  acquired  is  sound  and  not  perverse. 


Dr.  A.  H.  Smith:  The  Prophylactic  Value  of  Normal  Marriage.  Medical  News, 
1905,  vol.  87,  pp.  1163-1165.  Also  F.  Griffith:  Observations  Upon  the  Protective 
Value  of  the  Inspection  of  Public  Women  as  Carried  Out  in  Paris.  Medical  Record, 
N.  Y.,  1904,  vol.  65,  pp.  651-652.  Also  H.  A.  Brann:  Social  Prophylaxis  and  the 
Church.      Medical  News,  1905,  vol.  87,  p.  74. 

'  To  my  mind  the  public  pamphlet  of  the  Indianapolis  society,  "  Sexology  vs.  the 
Sexual  Plague,"  is  too  grossly  material  and  shocking.  We  must  not  admit  "yellow" 
methods  here. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  459 

and  be  ready  with  personal  aid  whenever  its  need  is  seen  or 
felt  and  for  the  rest  to  trust  nature. 

H.  G.  Wells  has  even  advocated  a  special  law  and  censor- 
ship for  all  literature  bearing  upon  this  subject.  H.  North- 
cote  ^  sees  the  higher  aspect  of  this  subject.  1  believe  it  is  not 
now  too  much  to  say  that  a  scientific  knowledge  of  sex 
is  absolutely  necessary  to  understand  certain  fundamentals  of 
Christianity  and  that  the  latter  is  to  be  greatly  reen forced  by 
the  former.  Our  religion  is  at  heart  an  expression  of  the 
passion  for  purity  and  righteousness  and  it  will  l^e  indefinitely 
strengthened  by  every  possible  allfance  with  a  true  science  of 
sex,  and  this  in  turn  will  shed  a  great  deal  of  light  upon 
practical  matters.  "  The  mighty  idol  Moloch,  Lord  of  Baalim, 
before  whom  victims  were  plunged,  into  the  torture  of  fires, 
a  sex  deity  in  phallic  worship,  was  a  lurid  symbol  of  the 
dangers  that  beset  the  sexual  life."  The  sense  of  the  inherent 
sinfulness  of  this  relation  has  been  explained  in  very  different 
ways  by  Westermarck,  Letourneau,  Ellis,  Crawley,  Tennant, 
C.  A.  Smith,  and  others.  It  is  due  to  the  fact  of  long-con- 
tinued and  calamitous  errors  and  excesses  in  this  part  of  our 
nature  to  which  the  dumb  instinct  of  the  race  that  always  says 
one  thing  while  meaning  another  but  is  always  inerrant  when 
rightly  interpreted,  has  reacted  by  developing  the  sense  of 
shame.  There  is  a  marked  trend  in  recent  criticism  both  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testament  to  reveal  sex  meanings  as  often 
cardinal  where  they  were  formerly  quite  unsuspected,  and 
even  to  judge  of  religions  by  the  wisdom  and  effectiveness 
with  which  they  regulate  this  relation.  No  topic  is  so  hard  to 
treat  without  exaggeration,  pruriency,  high  colors.  Northcote 
deserves  great  credit  for  his  sanity  in  treating  perversions, 
sex  in  art,  its  spiritualization,  marriage,  divtjrce,  disease,  nco- 
Malthusianisni.  the  battle  for  chastity  in  the  child  and  the 
adult  in  a  religious  sense.  Most  current  methods  of  coping 
with  the  evils  of  sex  seem  to  him  as  effective  as  to  try  to 
suppress  a  volcano  by  carting  off  some  of  its  scoria.  Legis- 
lation has  hitherto  been  usually  baffled  even  in  its  efforts  to 
protect  children.  Hypnotism  is  not  effective.  Medical  warn- 
ings, moral  coun.sel  and  penalties  may  and  no  doubt  do  help 

'Christianity  and  Sex  Pn)blems.     Davis,  riiiladclpliia,   ii>o6,  257  p. 


46o  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

this  evil  that  threatens  civilization,  bnt  religion,  which  has 
been  the  chief  agent  in  regulating  it  in  the  past,  must  be  also 
looked  to  in  the  future.  With  girls  even  more  than  with  men, 
it  is  important  to  connect  sex  enlightenment  with  religion. 
The  deeper  criticism  penetrates  into  the  inmost  core  of  early 
Christianity  and  comes  to  understand  the  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious psychic  motives  that  actuated  it,  the  more  it  is  seen  that 
aspirations  for  righteousness  on  the  one  hand  and  the  loath- 
ing of  iniquity  and  siii  on  the  other  had  their  real  meaning  in 
ancient  times  and  can  be  truly  understood  to-day  only  as  re- 
actions from  the  morbid,  gross  and  excessive  sexuality  that 
characterized  the  declining  age  of  Rome,  and  the  new  aspi- 
rations for  purity  in  this  respect  which  made  chastity  one  of 
the  supreme  virtues  and  created  the  celibate  sects,  and  that 
made  virginity  the  most  adorable  of  all  things. 

One  of  the  most  important  factors  in  the  problem  of 
woman  is  how  her  periodicity  has  been  regarded.  Man  has 
regarded  her  course  as  a  badge  of  inferiority.  He  has  turned 
from  her,  isolated  her,  called  her  unclean,  thinking  her  for  a 
time  diseased  and  perhaps  even  infectious  and  sometimes  en- 
forcing fantastic  regimen  and  taboos.  She  must  withdraw, 
hide  and  feel  humiliated.  He  did  not  understand  that  this 
w^as  nature's  inflorescence  and  not  only  marvelous  and  past 
his  comprehension  but  essentially  most  interesting  and  beauti- 
ful, a  process  when  normal  to  be  proud  and  not  ashamed  of. 
The  subjection  of  woman  in  so  small  measure  consists  in  the 
fact  that  she  has  accepted  this  old  ignorant  view  of  her  state 
and  function  from  man.  It  will  be  a  momentous  step  in  her 
real  inner  emancipation  when  she  fully  realizes  in  her  own 
soul,  of  course  without  ostentation,  that  this  function  is  due 
to  superfluity  and  not  to  defect  of  vitality,  that  it  is  the  germ 
of  a  new  life  knocking  at  a  door  not  yet  ready  to  admit  it  or 
rather  it  is  a  mimic  rehearsal  of  the  whole  birth  and  death. 
The  first  results  of  this  knowledge  and  its  complete  realization 
will  be  that  woman  will  accept  and  crave  the  whole  of 
periodicity  instead  of  maintaining  her  anxious  concealment 
or  repression  of  its  symptoms  and  will  regulate  all  her  regimen 
-and  environment  conformably  to  its  norms.  Young  pubescent 
girls  especially  need  to  yield  to  nature  with  entire  freedom,  if 
not  abandon.     They  often  flush,  turn  pale,  have  moments  of 


THE    PEDAGOGY    OF    SEX  461 

confusion,  yield  perhaps  to  tears,  certainly  to  inertia,  are  con- 
fused and  uncertain.  If  boys  are  present,  the  old  instinct  of 
concealment  makes  them  tense  and  yet  more  anxious,  for  were 
their  state  to  be  in  the  least  suspected  they  would  be  utterly 
crushed  with  mortification.  The  result  is  that  just  those  nervy 
girls  who  can  least  afford  this  strain,  are  most  resolute  that 
every  day  and  all  its  duties  shall  be  precisely  like  all  others. 
Seasoned  lady  teachers  have  made  light  of  it  or  taught  that 
all  the  peculiar  feelings  of  this  state  should  be  neglected  as  if 
a  crude  mind-cure  might  also  obliterate  them  and  it  is  thus  so 
often  with  aching  back  or  head,  tired  eyes,  brains  and  muscles, 
girls  try  to  be  imperturbed  and  uniform  through  the  entire 
month  and  thus  grow  exhausted  and  perhaps  anaemic,  keep  on 
in  class  although  by  doing  so  they  arrest  mammary  and  pelvic 
development  and  invite  brain  fag,  which  is  only  the  foretaste 
of  the  later  fag  of  pelvic  and  anabolic  function  which  will 
appear  in  much  more  formidable  form  later  in  pregnancy  and 
lactation.  If  girls'  daily  school  associations  were  only  with 
girls,  they  would  be  understood,  would  take  more  advantage 
of  the  allowance  of  cuts  and  other  exemptions.  Every  fully 
developed  normal  woman  wishes  to  be  alone  and  a  law  to  her- 
self at  times  in  a  way  that  even  husbands  do  not  always  under- 
stand. To  ripen  into  the  full  maturity  of  perfect  womanhood 
in  the  teens,  in  the  daily  companionship  and  competition  of 
boys  in  class,  hour  by  hour,  weeks  and  months  is  difficult,  rare, 
if  not  indeed  entirely  impossible.  A  haunting  sense  that  the 
other  sex  must  never  suspect  whatever  betides,  the  constant 
effort  a  few  days  each  month  to  conceal,  the  brutal  gibes  of 
callow  schoolboys  who  often  do  suspect  and  remember  and 
even  note  recurring  absences,  errors,  bad  lessons,  etc.,  makes 
an  atmosphere  to  which  no  girl  should  be  exposed,  and  many 
who  have  been  through  it  all,  if  not  robbed  of  a  little  refine- 
ment and  delicacy  of  sentiment,  are  more  or  less  maimed  in 
some  of  the  manifold  and  early  arrested  or  ])crverted  last 
subtle  stages  of  finished  womanhood.  Remarkable,  indeed,  if 
any  such  there  l)e,  who  go  through  all  these  long  and  intricate 
processes  of  transformation  under  the  eyes  of  our  precocious 
American  schoolboys  unscathed,  for  it  is  one  of  the  most  try- 
ing ordeals  which  womanhood  has  ever  l)een  called  to  face 
in  all  her  history.     The  entire  history  and  tradition  of  her  sex 


462  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

from  savagery  up  points  to  segregation  with  periods  of  isola- 
tion from  prying  male  eyes.  That  the  strain  is  real  and  great 
in  cases  where  it  is  unconscious  is  apparent  from  the  fact  that 
the  system  of  adolescent  girls  is  drawn  upon  for  years  in  order 
to  develop  all  the  organs  and  functions  involved  in  reproduc- 
tion which  are  many  times  larger,  harder,  and  more  uncertain, 
and  require  thus  a  far  greater  proportion  of  the  total  energy 
of  the  body  than  the  corresponding  parts  and  functions  in  the 
male.  Not  only  sympathetic  and  spinal  nerves  but  much  more 
brain  power  and  attention  is  absorbed  by  pelvic  functions  than 
is  the  case  with  man.  Hence,  if  those  who  now  argue  that  all 
kinds  of  mental  stimulus  tend  to  lower  nutritive  activities 
more  in  women  than  in  men  are  right,  it  follows  that  the  mere- 
ly intellectual  in  them  should  be  held  back  rather  than  inces- 
santly prodded  on  as  is  done  in  co-education.  Nature  decrees 
that  woman  during  all  her  fertile  years  shall  be  ever  ready  and 
recurrently  begin  to  digest  and  deplete  her  blood  and  nerves 
for  two.  She  can  and  must  never  during  all  her  best  years 
make  it  impossible  for  the  very  best  that  is  in  her  metabolism, 
feelings,  interest,  will,  thought,  and  life  to  be  turned  aside  to 
the  long  and  absorbing  processes  of  gestation  and  nursing. 
Therefore,  all  other  interests  and  every  intellectual  pursuit 
unrelated  to  these  functions  must  of  necessity  for  her  be  more 
or  less  provisional,  for  all  not  directly  pertaining  to  mother- 
hood may  be  suspended  and  superseded,  for  maternity  means 
physiologically  vastly  more  than  fatherhood  and  can  never  be 
so  incidental.  Nature  demands  that  woman  be  always  ready 
to  discharge  this  great  function  and  this  should  be  the  first 
law  of  her  being,  and  mental  training  in  other  directions  is 
forever  secondary.  It  depletes  the  system,  makes  these  proc- 
esses less  vigorous  and  complete  and  when  it  does  so  works 
incalculable  harm  and  loss. 

From  this  view  we  can  see  how  merely  mental  acquisition 
may  be  very  falsetto  and  unreal.  Learning  has  many  stages. 
Knowledge  may  be  crammed  in  the  memory  and  held  ready 
to  be  reproduced  verbally  when  called  upon.  In  this  stage  it 
causes  efifort  and  requires  both  conscious  and  unconscious 
strain.  There  is  often  worry  lest  it  be  not  kept  ever  ready  at 
call,  and  this  anxiety  prolonged  after  academic  months  and 
years  consumes  much  energy.     All  learning  which  remains  in 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  463 

this  surface  stage  is  a  burden  to  carry,  costly,  manifest  and 
showy  though  it  be.  Even  if  it  is  mechanized  in  rote  it  adds 
Httle  or  nothing  to  the  power  of  Hfe.  Very  different  is  the 
case  of  acquisitions  that  sink  deeper  and  reconstruct  conduct 
and  make  habits  of  Hfe  and  become  not  merely  Kenncn,  but 
Konnen.  This  practical  knowledge  is  no  longer  luggage  to  be 
carried  but  is  transmuted  into  strength  that  carries,  is  no 
longer  something  apperceived  but  a  part  of  the  apperception 
organ.  It  often  ceases  to  be  conscious  and  examinable  but 
sinks  deep  and  regulates  and  reenforces  the  springs  of  action. 
Its  training  and  power  is  not  merely  noetic.  Such  is  what  we 
put  to  work  and  use  and  such  studies  have  zest  and  vitality, 
are  contentful  and  not  merely  formal. 

Now  girls  tolerate  and  adjust  to  the  former  kind  and  stage 
of  knowledge  more  readily  than  boys  and,  perhaps  more  than 
they  know,  their  school  curriculum  remains  unapplied.  What 
they  learn  is  farther  from  the  things  they  most  need  to  know 
and  be  and  care  most  for.  Their  conscientiousness  forbids 
revolt  and  their  conventionality  makes  for  complaisance,  but 
because  it  is  less  vital  it  involves  more  nerve  straining.  It  is 
not  assimilated  and  so  consumes  instead  of  giving  vigor.  Thus 
till  we  demolish  the  inveterate  conventionality  of  girls  that 
makes  them  ready  to  accept  what  occupies  only  a  secondary 
place  in  their  interest  so  that  they  will  turn  as  honestly  from 
what  they  do  not  care  for  as  l)oys  do,  school  is  liable  to  play 
havoc  with  both  their  nerves  and  their  physical  development 
and  even  their  intellect  and  health.  They  will  go  on  with  their 
propensity  to  altruism,  taking  out  from  their  system  more 
than  it  can  afford  to  lose.  Instead  of  fitting  primarily  for  self- 
support  and  trusting  marriage  and  maternity  if  they  come  to 
take  care  of  themselves,  we  should  reverse  this  principle,  and 
in  addition  to  physical  dimorphism  each  sex  will  be  distin- 
guished psychologically  more  and  more  from  the  other. 

Self -abuse  and  Its  Peda^^ogy. — Hard  as  it  is  to  collect  reli- 
able statistics  upon  this  subject,  this  has  been  done  by  methods 
that  seem  trustworthy.  These  and  other  considerations  to- 
gether seem  to  show  that  masturbation  is  very  common  among 
boys  and  young  men  and  that  very  few  vigorous  and  eager- 
minded  youths  have  not  at  least  at  some  time  experimented 
with  theinselves  in  this  way.     Physicians  have  insisted  over 


464  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

and  over  again  that  no  healthy  male  reaches  the  age  of 
maturity  without  at  least  lapses  into  this  habit.  Often,  if  the 
extent  of  the  evil  has  not  been  overestimated,  its  deleterious 
effects  undoubtedly  have  been.  It  injures  body  and  mind, 
however,  perhaps  less  so  than  has  often  been  represented.  In 
certain  definite  respects  it  is  worse  than  natural  indulgence, 
viz.,  first,  it  can  be  resorted  to  at  any  time  and  does  not  require 
the  presence  of  another  person;  second,  there  is  no  repressive 
influence  of  expense;  and  third,  it  distinctly  tends  to  isolate 
and  divorce  the  function  from  related  processes  that  always 
should  go  with  it,  such  as  the  normal  preliminaries  of  court- 
ship or  even  capture,  gradual  approach,  showing  off,  and  the 
general  arousement  of  the  entire  psychophysic  organism. 
There  is  a  close  bond  between  this  habit  and  degeneracy,  each 
increasing  the  other.  It  undoubtedly  makes  directly  for  arrest 
before  complete  maturity.  It  gravely  injures  self-respect, 
brings  a  feeling  of  worthlessness,  weakness,  and  malaise.  It  is 
incompatible  with  athleticism  and  all  forms  of  keen,  eager 
mentality  or  even  artistic  power.  One  of  its  worst  results 
is  that  at  a  certain  point  the  mechanism  becomes  automatic  in 
nocturnal  and  spontaneous  emissions,  so  that  the  system  is 
drained  of  its  vitality  and  this  directly  tends  to  bring  a  sense  of 
repression  and  even  despair  that  sometimes  results  in  suicide. 
I  have  often  had  to  act  as  father-confessor  to  students  who 
had  resorted  to  many  kinds  of  devices,  had  been  the  victims 
of  extortionate  quacks,  but  all  in  vain,  and  had  come  to  feel 
themselves  lost  forever,  body  and  soul.  Here  alone  in  human 
experience  all  the  litany  of  total  depravity  and  of  the  unpar- 
donable sin  seems  to  be  literally  true.  The  young  man  in  this 
state  feels  himself  helpless  in  the  grasp  of  a  higher  malign 
power.  It  is  idle  to  discuss  what  proportion  of  these  dire  re- 
sults is  due  to  psychic  causes  like  fear  and  to  physiological 
effects.  It  is  a  very  salient,  painful  and  yet  significant  fact 
that  the  fear  of  being  incapacitated  for  future  parenthood  is 
one  of  the  very  most  poignant  of  all  the  psychalgias  to  which 
youth  is  subject.  Many  indulge  in  the  habit  for  a  season  and 
have  strength  of  will  enough  to  break  off ;  while  others  always 
resolve  with  all  their  might  in  the  trough  of  the  wave  of  ten- 
sion, and  while  at  its  crest  all  their  good  resolutions  are  swept 
away  like  foam.     All  this  has  brought  these  experiences  into 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX 


465 


very  close  relations  with  certain  types  of  religiosity  of  which 
they  are  the  key.  Often  the  obsessions  that  rest  upon  tiie 
victims  of  this  vice  are  so  persistent  that  after  hours  of  asser- 
tion, argumentation,  encouragement,  and  an  array  of  authori- 
ties, very  little  impression  is  made  toward  lightening  the  sense 
of  impending  doom;  and  it  is  sometimes  very  hard,  and  oc- 
casionally impossible,  to  restore  their  lost  manhood,  courage, 
and  buoyancy  to  these  youth. 

Here  it  is  that  the  results  of  ignorance  are  most  disastrous. 
The  statement  of  the  simple  fact  that  all  healthy  men  occa- 
sionally have  nocturnal  experiences  and  that  these  are  about 
as  inseparable  from  the  male  as  her  periodicity  is  from  the 
woman  has  often  of  itself  brought  great  relief  and  spoken 
peace  to  poor  creatures  who  did  not  know  it.  Here,  if  vice 
has  slain  its  thousands,  fear  has  slain  its  ten  thousands;  and 
sometimes  these  most  blighting  fears  are  found  to  be  happily 
without  any  reasonable  basis — the  youth  were  normal  but  did 
not  know  this  simple  law  of  their  being. 

Nocturnal  experiences  have  their  own  very  interesting  law. 
L.  Gualino  ^  thinks  erotic  dreams  and  emission,  which  explain 
many  legends  of  incuhi  and  siiccubce,  are  the  surest  sign  of 
puberty.  Like  Marro,  he  obtained  data  from  one  hundred 
males  as  follows : 


Age. 


12 
13 
14 

IS 
16 

»7 
18 


Per  Cents. 

Marro. 

Gualino. 

7% 

24% 

.33% 

48% 

50% 

65% 

84% 

86% 

97% 

92% 

IOO</(; 

100% 

Thus,  by  the  age  of  seventeen  or  eighteen,  it  ajjpear.s  that 
practically  all  Italians  have  had  such  dreams.  These  figures 
correspond  in  a  general  way  to  Marro's  test  of  puberty  by  the 
growth   of  hair.     The  first  .seminal  pollutions  are   vesicular 

'  II  Sogno  crolico  ncU'    t'omo   normalc.     Rivisia  di    Psiiologia,   etc.,    n>o7, 
vol.  3,  pp.  47-63- 
31 


466  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

secretions  without  spermatozoa,  and  twenty-seven  per  cent  are 
preceded  by  perhaps  violent  tumescence  and  vague  feeh'ngs  of 
tenderness  toward  the  other  sex,  as  noted  by  Wundt,  Forel,  etc. 
No  personal  sex  experience  is  necessary  to  awaken  these 
dreams.  It  may  thus  often  be  purely  atavistic,  and  the  new- 
born instincts  with  their  brain  centers  and  peripheral  organs, 
function  spontaneously  while  the  feelings,  which  have  before 
been  vague  and  not  understood,  become  suddenly  conscious, 
definite,  and  objective.  As  to  the  content  of  these  dreams,  the 
images  from  various  senses  of  women  are  common;  while  to 
seventy-one  per  cent,  they  were  ugly  or  even  monstrous,  per- 
haps a  mother,  an  animal,  etc.  These  images  often  transform 
themselves  to  inanimate  things — a  hat,  a  boat,  a  musical  in- 
strument, etc.  At  first,  the  act  is  often  public,  though  usually 
uninduced  by  others,  and  in  seventy-three  per  cent  is  rapid 
and  violent.  The  emotional  state  is  anxious,  fearsome,  desir- 
ous, etc.,  but  with  age  the  imagined  female  becomes  less  hate- 
ful, though  she  is  still  rarely  known,  and  the  phenomena  of 
exhaustion  and  reaction  are  less  marked.  If  such  experiences 
are  frequent,  the  psychophysic  tension  is  less,  the  prelimina- 
ries to  the  consummation  are  prolonged,  the  place  becomes  more 
fit,  etc.  Erotic  dreams  tend  to  assimilate  themselves  to  wak- 
ing states,  and  in  that  respect  are  different  from  other  dreams. 
The  former  are  far  more  frequent,  intense,  and  more  recallable 
than  other  varieties  of  dreams.  There  is  often  a  periodicity 
in  them  which  usually  disappears  after  marriage.  They  are 
accompanied  by  caresses  and  by  excitement  with  restraint, 
but  are  also  increased  as  by  a  kind  of  momentum  in  the  post- 
coital period.  They  may  occur  in  cases  of  psychic,  but  not  of 
physiological,  impotence.  Gualino  confirms  the  conclusions  of 
the  important  studies  of  Sanctis  and  Maury  that  the  habit  of 
waking  up  and  immediately  recording  dreams  modifies  their 
content. 

That  normal,  virtuous,  unmarried  young  men  have  sexual 
periodicity  can  no  longer  be  doubted.  It  is  seen  in  various 
studies  of  savages,  in  careful  observations  of  dream  and  other 
nocturnal  experiences,  in  certain  psychic  alterative  types  of 
mental  alienation,  and  from  our  own  collection  of  data  from 
normal  subjects.  The  form  and  frequency  of  this  curve  is 
subject  to  great  individual  variations,  and  it  is  superposed 


THE    PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  467 

upon  a  larger  seasonal  curve.  So  far  as  we  are  able  to  infer 
from  these  premises,  the  following  seems  to  be  a  typical 
normal  cycle : 

1.  The  youth  feels  a  subtle  and  languid  sadness  and  sense 
of  inadequacy  stealing  over  him.  He  may  or  may  not  connect 
this  with  specific  instances  of  failure  or  disappointment.  There 
is  so  much  to  do  and  such  heights  to  attain  that  his  effort 
seems  vain  or  at  least  inadequate ;  what  he  could  and  ought  to 
strive  for  seems  beyond  his  powers ;  wishes  and  ideals  take  on 
a  rather  definite  shape,  but  his  ambitions  are  unrealizable; 
some  are  more,  some  less,  depressed;  but  life  is  felt  to  be  too 
much  or  too  hard  for  them ;  a  few  weaklings  seem  to  lack 
the  power  to  react,  and  break  away  from  the  normal  rhythm 
and  pass  over  to  chronic  despair  and  possibly  suicide,  or  at 
least  thoughts  of  it,  which  who  has  not  had  ?  For  many  suc- 
cess hardly  seems  worth  the  cost ;  the  intellect  is  clear  but  the 
will  is  weak;  more  commonly  this  is  a  rather  exquisite  and 
sweet  melancholia  that  is  rather  toyed  with  than  taken  very 
seriously;  it  may  be  keenly  felt  in  secret,  or  it  may  seem  far 
greater  than  it  is  by  a  kind  of  half-conscious  affectation  which 
loves  to  flirt  with  pessimistic  moods;  it  may  be  a  touch,  but 
not  much,  of  the  Hamlet  psychosis;  it  may  be  restless  or 
quiet  and  contemplative ;  it  inclines  some  to  meditation  and  to 
solitude;  it  often  seems  like  an  ebb  of  the  vital  tide. 

2.  Slowly,  usually  in  a  few  days,  courage  rises  and  a  mood 
to  do  and  dare  supervenes ;  work  is  easier  and  activity  is  more 
effective;  things  are  attempted  with  resolution  and  we  accom- 
plish things,  mental  or  physical,  that  had  seemed  impossible; 
new,  high  purposes  are  formed  and  steps  taken  toward  their 
execution ;  there  is  augmented  motor  tension ;  sleep  is  a  little 
less;  appetite  keener;  hardship  and  exposure  become  more  at- 
tractive and  difficulties  fade.  In  some  the  unrest  is  liable  to 
become  fever;  if  there  is  anxiety,  it  is  a  spur  and  not  a  de- 
terrent ;  seconrl  breath  and  brain  erethism  are  more  liable  and 
the  higher  powers  of  man  seem  attainable;  the  pace  of  labor 
is  rapid  and  fatigue  may  be  almost  forgotten  ;  the  spirits  are 
aggressive,  perhajjs  almost  defiant;  the  disposition  of  Long- 
fellow's "  Excelsior  "  is  on;  the  pulse  beats  higher,  life  throbs, 
and  the  soul  is  dauntless;  very  likely  blood  pressure  is  in- 
creased and  metabolism  more  rapid;  the  tide  is  rising  toward 


468  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

its  flood ;  the  lover  is  no  longer  disheartened  but  confident  and 
hopeful  and  harder  to  be  put  off.  This  is  the  efficient  stage 
in  which  man  does  his  most  and  best.  In  unbalanced  natures 
the  excitement  may  take  on  maniacal  features. 

3.  After  a  time,  more  or  less  extended,  of  this  reenforce- 
ment  and  acceleration,  there  comes  a  spontaneous,  sexual, 
nocturnal  crisis,  usually  with  ecstatic  dreams  of  the  general 
type  which  punctuates  all  the  virile  life  of  man.  The  first 
of  these  experiences  often  marks  something  of  an  epoch  in  the 
private,  secret  life  of  the  soul,  exciting  curiosity  and  giving  a 
profound  sense  of  exquisite  realization  and  implanting  a  sense 
that  there  is  something  of  inconceivable  worth  and  value  in 
the  world,  giving  a  glimpse  of  transcendent  altitudes  and  pos- 
sibilities of  satisfaction  of  all  man's  longing  and  desires  some- 
where, somehow. 

4.  Now  come  normally  a  few  days  of  calm,  poise, 
tranquillity,  and  satisfaction ;  intensity  of  effort  remits  a  little. 
It  is  good  to  be  as  well  as  to  do ;  nature,  art,  literature,  music, 
work  on  us  with  a  slightly  more  potent  charm ;  the  demon  of 
rush  and  hurry  relaxes  his  hold;  life  is  long  and  must  be 
enjoyed  as  we  forge  and  toil  on ;  there  is  after  all  much  time 
ahead,  and  we  need  not  hurry  so ;  much  can  and  will  be  done, 
but  not  everything  by  us;  when  we  think  of  our  limitations 
we  are  more  easily  reconciled  to  them ;  there  are  other  days  to 
come  and  much  must  be  left  for  others  to  do;  sleep  is  at  its 
very  best  and  rest  as  well  as  endeavor  is  also  sweet;  we  are 
now  sanest,  most  philosophical,  not  easily  perturbed,  are  judi- 
cial and  can  see  and  weigh  two  sides.  But  this  stage,  like  the 
others,  will  not  last  and  slowly  begins  again  an  exquisite  ennui 
that  soon  clouds  into  some  of  the  hues  of  discontent  and  long- 
ing, nameless  though  its  object  be.  Content  is  not  so  complete 
but  something  is  wanting,  though  we  cannot  tell  what;  but 
slowly  desires  grow  definite.  They  are  in  pure  natures  not  so 
sensuous  as  spiritual ;  ambition  for  achievement  looms  up  in 
ideals  and  day  dreams  which  go  far  beyond  our  ability;  so 
that  now  again  we  are  at  the  beginning  of  the  first  stage  of 
the  cycle  from  which  we  set  out. 

Thus  the  impulse  of  virility  beats,  and  the  momentum  of 
heredity  advances,  pauses,  and  intermits.  Through  all  the 
years   of   probation   before   marriage,   we   receive   waves   of 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  469 

energy  from  nature  which  we  are  to  siibhniate  and  convert 
into  ever  higher  cultural  advances.  Thus  we  ripen  by  control 
for  effective  fatherhood,  when  its  consummate  hour  comes. 
These  phases  are  very  faint  in  many,  are  obscured  by  manifold 
outer  influences,  and  often  escape  self -observation  and  that  of 
our  friends.  Every  kind  of  dissoluteness  interferes  with  and 
denormalizes  them.  They  are  accelerated  and  overstressed  in 
sorne;  others  are  slowly  arrested  in  some  one  phase,  which 
grows  habitual  and  may  become  a  diathesis  or  give  to  charac- 
ter a  permanent  disposition.  The  changing  gamut  of  moods 
is  essential  for  full  maturity,  for  it  prevents  stagnation  and 
arrest,  and  makes  the  soul  plastic  and  docile  to  every  influence 
of  development.  Each  phase  has  its  own  mental  horizon  and 
emotional  experience,  and  thus  the  scope  of  Ijie  intellect,  the 
range  of  association,  the  variety  of  feeling,  is  widened.  Thus 
normal  fatherhood  ripens  through  its  increasingly  long  novi- 
tiate in  modern  times,  which  was  never  so  trying  but  never 
charged  with  such  high  potencies  for  complete  maturity  of 
body  and  soul.  Individuation  thus  does  its  complete  work 
and  brings  ripeness  for  genesis,  in  some  sense  its  counterpart 
and  antithesis.  Now  is  the  time  for  marriage  for  the  turn  of 
posterity  has  come.  It  is  those  who  stand  this  long  test  suc- 
cessfully— and  only  those — that  deserve  and  win  in  fullest 
measure  the  deep  and  abiding  love  of  their  mate,  and  merit  all 
the  respect  and  gratitude  that  children  should  owe  to  their 
parents.  Failure  in  this  stage  means  abated  mutual  love  be- 
tween parents  themselves  and  between  children  and  parents. 
No  amount  of  personal  kindness,  wealth,  exemption  from  toil, 
display,  or  social  opportunities  which  husbands  can  provide 
their  wives,  can  atone  for  the  results  of  failure  on  their  part 
in  standing  this  severe  initiation  which  modern  life  requires. 
To  love  is  not  to  give  gifts,  neither  is  to  receive  them  to  be 
loved;  but  lx)th  are  cheap  substitutes  and  palliatives.  So.  too, 
no  care  lavished  upon  infancy,  childhood,  and  youth  by  fathers 
who  seek  by  so  doing  to  atone  for  not  endowing  their  offsi)ring 
with  the  maximum  of  the  most  ancient  and  jirecious  form  of 
wealth  and  worth,  heredity,  can  make  atonement.  Those  who 
fail  in  this  preconceptional  stage  also  forfeit  thereby  the  chief 
claim  of  i)arents  to  the  reverence,  affection,  and  olK'dience  of 
their  children.     The  bitter  and  justifiable  curses  (jf  the  latter 


470  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

upon  the  fathers  that  begat  them,  which  we  see  with  increas- 
ing frequency  in  the  world  about  us  and  in  literary  portrayals, 
are  the  most  bitter  of  all  invectives  and  the  most  soul-quaking 
of  all  imprecations. 

Blessings  brighten  as  they  take  their  flight,  and  along  with 
race  suicide  we  already  see  signs  of  a  new  idealization  of 
motherhood  which  sometimes  takes  the  form  of  almost  rhap- 
sodical extravagance.  "  The  true  divinity  of  our  day,"  says 
a  German  writer,  "  is  the  mother."  God  in  the  future  is  to  be 
yet  more  our  mother  than  our  Father  in  Heaven,  and  even 
Protestantism  must  evolve  some  kind  of  a  new  Mariolatry  of 
its  own  for  the  new  coronation  of  motherhood. 

Careful  alumni  statistics  from  Harvard  and  Yale  show 
that  250  years  ago  only  two  per  cent  of  the  graduates  remained 
unmarried,  while  now  nearly  one  fourth  are  unmarried  at  the 
age  of  forty-five.  Most  of  the  women  our  forefathers  wedded 
were  barely  twenty-one.  Sibley  and  Dexter  show  that  the 
average  number  of  children  of  Harvard  and  Yale  graduates 
was  nearly  seven  per  husband  and  five  per  mother.  Half  were 
clergymen  who  married  in  the  early  twenties  upon  ordination, 
and  with  a  salary  of  from  two  to  five  hundred  dollars,  and 
our  foremothers  have  spun,  woven,  knit,  baked,  washed, 
ironed,  embroidered,  made  butter  and  cheese.  No  wonder 
their  mortality  was  great.  Of  the  wives  of  418  Yale  gradu- 
ates before  1745,  thirty-three  died  at  twenty-five  or  under, 
fifty-five  at  thirty-five  or  under,  and  fifty-nine  at  forty-five  or 
under.  Forty  per  cent  died  before  they  were  fifty,  leaving  on 
an  average  four  and  a  half  children  each.  If  the  wife  died, 
the  father  must  marry  again  to  have  aid  in  rearing  his  family, 
and  it  sometimes  took  a  second  and  even  a  third  wife  to  bring 
up  the  children  of  the  first,  to  which  number  she  often  added 
her  own.  Remarriage  was  almost  universal  and  was  almost 
regarded  as  a  religious  obligation.  No  wonder  these  women 
often  suffered  from  long  and  painful  diseases,  with  medical 
aid  sparse  and  incompetent,  with  thin  shoes  and  the  tight 
lacings  common  in  those  days.  The  fact  that  in  the  exercise 
of  the  holy  ofiice  of  motherhood  she  often  had  to  face  the  grim 
chance  of  death  under  these  hard  conditions,  tended  to  reen- 
force  her  natural  religious  instincts  and  to  keep  her  close  to 
the  Divine  Source  of  strength.     While  in  Puritan  days,  men 


THE    PEDAGOGY    OF    SEX  47i 

quarreled  about  theology  and  formulated  creeds  and  built 
churches,  piety  true  and  undefiled  found  its  sanctuary  in  the 
inmost  heart  of  woman.  The  unfathomable  sense  of  depend- 
ence in  which  religion  has  its  psychic  root  is  strong  in  her  soul, 
which  has  always  been  cramped  and  repressed,  subject  to 
pathetic  disappointments,  and  this  inclines  her  to  seek  reli- 
gious consolation  and  communion.  Where  else  could  she  turn 
save  to  God,  where  else  hope  for  reward  save  in  Heaven, 
where  else  feel  at  home  and  at  rest  from  incessant  care  save 
in  the  church?  The  transcendental  world  is  always  inversely 
as  this,  and  it  is  no  small  meed  of  praise  for  our  Puritan 
mothers  that  they  learned  how  to  extract  the  comforts  of  true 
religion  from  the  crabbed  creeds  and  long  doctrinal  sermons  of 
their  day.  One  of  the  most  widely  read  booklets  bore  the 
significant  title,  "  Crumbs  of  Comfort  for  Mothers,"  and  in  a 
collection  of  old  Bibles  and  hymn  books  I  find  many  a  favorite 
page  tear-stained,  and  still  more  underscored  and  written 
through  with  cross  references,  in  some  woman's  hand.  In  the 
lives  of  some  clergymen  of  that  day,  we  find,  too,  that  he  was 
sustained,  guided  in  his  choice  and  perhaps  even  in  his  treat- 
ment of  his  subjects,  and  had  his  courage  reenforced,  by  some 
high-minded  woman  of  his  flock.  These  foremothers  often 
kept  school  at  home  every  evening.  They  left  not  a  few  jour- 
nals and  diaries.  The  New  England  Primer  was  a  family 
book.  The  girls  were  taught  to  ^veave,  spin  both  wool  and 
flax,  to  make  palm-leaf  hats,  embroider,  quilt,  dip  candles, 
and  were  told  of  the  medicinal  purposes  of  a  score  or  two  of 
plants.  Some  of  them  educated  themselves  far  beyond  the 
school.  Altogether,  therefore,  the  Puritan  New  England 
mother,  so  far  as  we  can  form  an  adequate  image  of  what  she 
was  and  did,  was  a  majestic  as  well  as  a  pathetic  figure.  Now, 
no  social  class  is  so  sterile  as  the  educated  who  should  send 
forth  the  best  they  breed. 

Of  all  the  indirect  means  of  controlling  and  normalizing 
sex,  first,  the  ideals  of  physical  perfection,  traitiitii^,  body  kccp- 
in^,  health,  lead.  A  young  man  with  a  ruddy  cheek,  clear  eye. 
confideiU,  erect  carriage,  fond  of  exercise,  outdoors  and  afield, 
delighting  in  competition  involving  victory  and  fatigue,  am- 
bitious to  l)e  a  splendid  animal,  with  a  strong,  flexible  voice, 
a  natural  piety,  regular  sleeping  habits,  hearty,  free,  open  in 


472  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

manners,  in  love  with  the  good  old  Turners'  ideas,  frisch,  frei, 
frohlich,  fromm,  with  a  laudable  passion  to  excel,  with  a  love 
of  rhythmic  movements  of  great  variety  and  vigor  which  may 
count  so  much  to  cadence  the  soul  to  virtue  and  preform  it  to 
religion — about  such  a  young  man  there  is  usually  nothing 
that  is  wrong  in  secret.  It  is  these  things  in  which  those  who 
are  sexually  unhealthy  are  crippled,  and  into  this  joy  of  life 
those  who  know  much  of  Venusberg  can  never  enter.  Thus 
every  introduction  of  a  motor  element  in  place  of  the  old 
sedentary  training  makes  for  chastity. 

Second,  the  intelligence  of  young  people  is  normally  very 
keen,  their  curiosity  alert,  their  minds  sprouting  and  teeming 
with  eager  spontaneous  interest,  grasping  out  for  new  facts, 
trying  new-found  powers  of  reason,  ambitious  for  all  kinds  of 
summits  like  the  hero  of  Longfellow's  "  Excelsior,"  having 
spells  of  amazingly  rapid  growth,  crises  of  perseverance  and 
activity,  when  now  the  soul,  now  the  body,  shoot  ahead  by 
leaps  and  bounds,  the  former  in  a  rapid,  intuitive  way  possible 
only  for  youth.  Now  every  intellectual  interest  is  also  a  seda- 
tive or  an  alterative  of  sex  on  its  sensuous  side.  From  this 
follows  a  converse  truth  of  the  gravest  import,  viz.,  merely 
formal  school  topics,  dull  teaching,  listless  routine,  zestless 
attention,  are  themselves  incentives  to  passion,  which  always 
presses  for  entrance  into  unoccupied  minds  and  moments,  so 
that  wherever  there  are  unused  functions,  there  is  danger. 
Sitting  without  mental  interest  invites  the  devil.  On  the  other 
hand,  for  the  virtuous  the  deeds  and  words  of  great  men  are 
never  so  inspiring,  while  the  dry-as-dust  teachers  and  courses 
are  co-respondents  with  the  lusty  blood  of  youth  in  the  indict- 
ment of  sexual  errors  now  brought  against  high-school  pupils 
and  college  students.  It  is  a  hard  thing  to  arouse  strong  and 
deep  intellectual  interests  in  young  men  at  this  age,  and  it  is 
because  of  the  dangers  where  this  is  not  done  that  we  must 
base  one  of  the  strongest  arguments  for  making  education 
more  industrial,  occupational,  or  vocational. 

Third,  puberty  is  the  birthday  of  the  feelings  and  emotions, 
which  are  the  oldest  and  most  dominant  parts  of  the  soul,  that 
really  rule  our  lives  even,  and  have  most  to  do  in  making  us 
sane  or  insane.  Let  me  repeat  that  the  young  must  tingle  and 
crepitate  with  sentiment,  and  feeling  is  at  no  time  quite  so 


THE   PEDAGOGY    OF    SEX  473 

necessary  as  during  the  teens.  If  there  are  no  worthy  excitants 
or  causes,  the  young  are  very  Hable  to  turn  to  grosser  forms 
of  pleasure;  hence  every  glow  of  even  athletic  interest,  every 
thrill  aroused  by  heroism,  every  faint  pulse  of  religious  ad- 
miration, takes  just  so  much  from  the  potential  energy  of 
passion  by  giving  it  a  kinetic  equivalent  on  a  higher  plane. 
One  of  the  surest  effects  of  overindulgence  of  passion,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  that  the  heart  grows  stale,  there  is  abatement  of 
the  lust  of  life,  a  touch  of  cynicism,  indifference,  a  dampening 
of  the  faculty  of  admiration,  a  feeling  that  there  is  after  all 
hardly  anything  in  the  world  really  worth  heroic  endeavor  or 
self-denial,  a  nil  admirare  pose  toward  great  questions  and  in- 
terests, a  touch  of  incapacity  for  genuine  enthusiasm,  and  in 
place  of  heartiness  and  high  Gemiit  and  esprit  there  slowly 
supervenes  some  form  of  fastidiousness,  which  is  always  a  bad 
sign.  The  young  man  coddles  and  nurses  his  body  or  his 
whims,  develops  affectations  and  perhaps  idiosyncrasies,  may 
become  overfinicky  in  dress  or  even  cleanliness,  for  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  overimmaculateness  in  these  respects.  Such 
things  even  in  collegians  are  often  the  first  harbingers  of  the 
slight,  faint  symptoms  of  dementia  prcecox,  which  in  so  many 
cases  are  found  among  those  who  have  freaky,  faddish  veins 
of  excellence  and  perhaps  pass  for  geniuses  that  have  just 
failed  to  arrive.  In  most  bachelor  clubs  we  find  such  types. 
The  world  is  full  of  laggards  who  have  not  quite  attained  full 
maturity  or  virility,  who  are  not  mattoids,  rowdies,  vagabonds, 
dullards,  hoodlums,  or  young  leaguers  but  nevertheless  have 
not  finished  their  adolescence  but  have  been  checked.  They 
have  had  enthusiasms  but  perhaps  these  have  been  suddenly 
lost.  There  have  been  great  promises  but  they  have  been 
dropped  into  humble  situations.  Only  an  expert  alienist 
would  detect  the  germs  of  dementia,  which  have  never  fully 
developed.  Adolescence  is  a  thing  of  many  stages  and  arrest  is 
liable  at  any  one  of  them.  Some  parts  may  l)e  disproportion- 
ately developed  because  cohesion  and  psychic  unity  are  not 
attained.  The  world  is  thus  full  of  those  who  have  stopped  at 
every  stage  of  this  toilsome,  devious  and  complex  way  up- 
ward, who  have  disappointed  their  friends,  grown  lylasc. 
Some  of  them  doubtless  are  found  among  the  26(>  Prussian 
students  who  between  the  years  of  1885  and  1889  committed 


474  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

suicide.  They  may  not  have  overt  symptoms  and  lack  all  the 
paradigms  of  premature  decay,  but  they  have  not  fully  matured 
or  they  have  matured  prematurely. 

As  to  late  marriages,  long  ago  Galton  showed  that  even  in 
fertile  England,  if  women  did  not  marry  before  twenty-seven 
or  eight,  the  nation  would  die  out  because  there  are  not  enough 
children  born  of  mothers  over  this  age  to  keep  up  the  popula- 
tion. In  this  country,  had  we  sufficient  statistics,  this  age 
would  doubtless  be  found  to  be  lower,  for  as  fertility  declines 
in  any  class,  marriage  must  be  progressively  earlier  in  order 
to  insure  that  each  generation  be  as  numerous  as  that  which 
preceded  it,  while  it  must  be  yet  earlier  if  population  is  to 
increase.  Tested  either  by  the  number  and  frequency  or  by 
the  viability  of  offspring,  the  early  or  middle  twenties  are  the 
golden  age  for  effective  motherhood.  Special  studies  seem  to 
indicate  that  if  either  parent  is  over  the  age  of  maximal  effi- 
ciency in  fecundity,  the  interests  of  posterity  require  that  the 
other  parent  should  be  a  little  under  age,  so  that  for  a  number 
of  years  the  total  age  of  both  parents  should  not  be  much 
above  sixty  to  maintain  the  highest  rate.  Some  think  that 
those  born  of  too  young  parents  are  prone  to  attain  the  com- 
pletest  maturity,  and  it  is  probably  more  certain  that  children 
of  too  old  parents  tend  to  mature  precociously  and  perhaps  to 
show  early  signs  of  caducity.  Again,  the  late  maturing  classes 
produce  but  about  three  generations  per  century  so  that  their 
offspring,  even  if  as  numerous,  would  eventually  be  snowed 
under  by  that  of  classes  that  produce  four  generations  per 
century.  Within  marriage  the  "  one-child  "  system,  or  even 
the  "  two-child "  system  is  condemned  and  found  wanting 
because  only  children  are,  on  the  average,  distinctly  inferior 
to  those  with  several  brothers  and  sisters.  It  is  therefore 
pathetic  to  find  so  many  parents,  especially  mothers  who  are 
rather  delicate,  who  strive  by  lavishing  excessive  care  upon 
their  one  or  two  rather  feeble  offspring  to  atone  for  the  faults 
of  nature  by  nurture.  Only  the  complete  mother  is  the  com- 
plete woman  and  the  complete  father  the  complete  man.  Ter- 
tullian  said,  "  The  soul  is  restless  till  it  finds  rest  in  God  " ; 
so  the  soul  of  woman  is  restless  till  it  finds  the  fulfillment  of 
its  deepest  desires  in  motherhood.  Is  there  anywhere  a  normal 
woman  of  thirty-five  or  forty,  famous  though  she  be,  who 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  475 

would  not  in  her  heart  prefer  home,  husband,  and  children 
above  all  things  the  world  has  offered?  The  wife  enters,  but 
only  the  mother  graduates  from  the  great  college  of  life. 
Nature  has  no  more  magnificent  processional  than  the  gradual 
blossoming  of  wifely  into  motherly  love.  Without  this 
womanhood  is  unfinished.  Compared  with  this,  culture, 
society,  charities,  suffrage,  occupations,  rights,  are  only  con- 
solation prizes  or  at  least  secondary  and  more  or  less  diver- 
sionary choices,  sought  often  all  the  more  eagerly  because  of  a 
hungry  void  in  the  heart.  For  those  denied  the  supreme  goal 
of  womanhood  it  is  well  that  these  placebos  and  nepenthes 
are  at  hand.  The  deepest  instinct,  therefore,  of  every  true 
woman  soul  is  to  transmit  life,  and  her  profoundest  and 
most  inconsolable  woe  is  the  prospect  of  a  childless  old  age 
and  death.  Her  soul  is  more  protensive  than  man's  and  the 
desire  for  personal  immortality  and  that  for  posterity  sustain 
and  vicariate  for  each  other,  all  of  which,  of  course,  is  in 
changed  terms  and  proportions  also  for  men. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  women  that  seem  made  rather  for 
gratification  than  for  procreation.  They  are  not  built  for  mother- 
hood. Their  figures  are  those  of  the  fashion  plates,  and  such  could 
not  bear,  nurse,  or  rear  healthy  children.  They  long  for  adoration 
and  conquest ;  their  whole  character  and  conduct  is  adapted  to  win 
rather  than  to  hold  man's  affection.  If  they  marry,  they  drop  at 
once  all  the  artifice  which  has  constituted  most  of  their  lives ;  and 
to  their  husbands  at  least  they  appear  in  their  true  nature.  They 
often  crave  and  demand  about  every  indulgence  and  service.  Their 
accomplishments  do  not  include  home-making;  perhaps  they  palpitate 
with  a  sense  of  their  rights  but  of  their  duties  they  know  and  feel 
nothing;  responsibility  irks  them.  Their  love  for  their  husbands 
does  not  persist  like  that  of  Perdita's  in  wanting  them  to  be  the 
fathers  of  their  children;  but  to  some  of  them  the  mere  idea  of 
childbearing  becomes  almost  a  morbid  phobia.  Their  part  in  the 
partnership  of  wedlock  is  at  most  to  hold  and  advance  their  own  and 
their  husband's  social  position.  If  they  are  vital  enough  to  love  phys- 
ically, it  is  for  self  pleasure  and  not  for  posterity;  and  they  usually 
know  the  theory  and  practice  of  the  neo-Malthusianisni  of  prevention. 
The  husband  of  such  a  woman  is  at  best  the  privileged  lover  rather 
than  her  ideal  of  a  father.  She  may,  if  fervid,  illustrate  Kijjling's 
Vampire  and  sap  tlie  vitality  of  her  spouse  and  bring  him  to  prema- 
ture senescence;  <»r,  if  she  be  or  grow  frigid,  he  nnist  be  content  if  he 
can  admire  her  taste  in  dress,  her  social  successes,  the  brilliancy  of 
her  intellect,  perhaps  her  delicacy,  exquisite  nervous  sensibility,  or 
any  other  of  these  wretched  substitutes  which  women  of  this  type 


476  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

oflfer  their  spouses  in  place  of  true  wifely  love  with  plenty  of 
maternalism  in  it.  Again,  her  fancy  may  be  of  the  roaming  rather 
than  of  the  homing  type,  and  she  may  delight  in  fascinating  other 
men,  which  such  women  who  have  so  little  to  offer  often  know 
superbly  well  how  to  do,  and  leave  her  mate  to  either  grow  indiffer- 
ent and  to  follow  her  example  or,  if  the  poor  wretch  really  loves 
her,  to  eat  his  heart  out  with  jealousy  and  fall  a  victim  in  the  end 
to  scandal  and  the  lawyers. 

The  problem  is  how  and  why  such  types  exist  in  civilized  society 
when  they  are  hardly  found  among  primitive  races.  The  question  is 
as  interesting  intellectually  as  it  is  sad.  Are  they  themselves  prod- 
ucts of  decadent  love,  and  has  man  thus,  by  some  law  of  nature  not 
yet  fathomed,  tended  to  provide  his  own  sex  with  women  who  are 
meant  for  passion  and  not  fit  to  be  wives  and  mothers?  Because 
man  indulges  himself  more  than  is  needful  for  offspring,  does  the 
great  Biologos  provide  him  with  these  specimens  of  the  other  sex 
as  the  cloaca  of  his  superfluous  passion,  making  them  sterile  in  the 
interests  of  the  race  ?  Surely  prostitution  is  not  inherent  in  the 
economy  of  nature ;  or  does  she  cunningly  fashion  this  type  to  attract 
men  of  her  own  class  who  want  only  gratification  and  are  not  fit  to 
contribute  to  the  constitution  of  posterity?  This  latter  seems  the 
most  optimistic  because  the  most  eugenic  view.  Growth  studies 
suggest  that  such  women  may  be  products  of  arrest,  since  height 
and  slenderness  come  first,  and  breadth  of  head,  chest,  and  hips, 
which  is  the  physical  basis  of  maternity,  are  added  later.  If  so,  it 
is  well  that  this  type  are  sterile  because,  lacking  maternity  them- 
selves, they  could  not  bear  children  that  would  come  to  the  full  ripe- 
ness of  man's  estate.  Whatever  their  origin,  the  tragedy  is  not  when 
they  mate  with  their  kind,  but  with  those  whose  supreme  desire  is 
to  be  fathers  and  found  families.  This  type,  at  any  rate,  should  be 
known  as  it  really  is,  and  their  diagnosis  should  be  a  part  of  the 
education  that  fits  young  men  for  marriage. 

It  is  very  hard  for  a  mother  to  be  rich,  especially  to  become 
suddenly  rich,  and  to  be  a  good  mother.  In  no  age  or  land  is  this 
shown  on  so  vast  a  scale  as  now  and  in  this  country.  Great  pros- 
perity is  dangerous  and  hard  for  women,  perhaps  even  more  so 
than  for  men.  Through  long  ages  of  past  subjection  women  have 
been  bearing  burdens  and  often  bad  treatment,  while  now  those 
of  the  well-to-do  classes  have  fewer  duties  that  must  be  done  and 
more  leisure,  are  more  exempted  from  the  burdens  of  life,  more 
waited  on  by  servants,  flattered  and  pampered  by  men,  better 
dressed,  more  given  over  to  amusement,  show,  and  pleasure  than  ever 
before  in  the  world's  history.  The  number  of  such  women  is  un- 
precedentedly  large  and  is  increasing.  Treated  as  dolls,  some  be- 
come so,  or  as  idols  they  become  arrogant,  exacting,  and  above  all 
their  natural  altruism  is  turned  into  a  selfishness  that  is  rank  and 
almost  inconceivably  extreme.  From  bearing  their  full  share  of  the 
burdens  of  life,  a  few  generations  ago,  they  are  now  living  one  con- 


THE    PEDAGOGY    OF    SEX  477 

tinuous  round  of  pleasure.  Their  husbands  toil  that  they  may  be 
lilies  of  the  field,  are  proud  of  their  beauty,  adorn  them  with  costly 
ornaments,  surround  them  with  every  luxury,  vying  with  each  other 
that  their  wives  and  daughters  may  outshine,  outentertain,  outclass 
those  of  others  in  extravagance  and  display.  It  is  now  a  hard 
doctrine  but  a  true  one  that  all  women  need  work,  pain,  suffering, 
no  whit  less  than  men  and  perhaps  more  so.  They  need  more  or  less 
hardship  to  bring  out  their  best  qualities.  These  haughty  queenlets 
who  appear  like  fashion  plates,  who  dictate,  demand  and  command 
cannot  possibly  be  good  wives,  still  less  good  mothers.  Never  have 
such  large  numbers  of  their  sex  made  such  heavy  demands  upon  men. 
The  man  who  declared  that  if  he  could  choose  his  heavenly  lot  it 
would  be  to  be  born  an  American  woman  of  this  class,  let  us  hope 
for  his  own  sake  was  sincere  and  not  a  humorist. 

We  must  realize  that  for  all  our  boys  and  girls  to-day  the  old 
ideals  of  absolute  purity  in  thought,  word,  and  deed  are  im- 
possible, and  that  prudery  and  reticence  are  co-respondents 
with  temptation  for  many  a  lapse  from  virtue,  although  I 
think  we  must  on  the  whole  consider  that  the  youth  and  igno- 
rance of  girls  are  even  less  dangerous  than  are  industrial  condi- 
tions that  force  so  many  thousands  of  them  in  the  later  teens 
to  work  for  from  three  to  six  dollars  per  week,  supporting 
themselves  where  the  standard  of  comfort  is  so  high  and  in  an 
age  when  the  instinct  to  display  is  so  strong.  Incidentally, 
too,  we  should  not  forget  that  deep  down  in  the  soul  of  every 
man  and  woman  lies  an  inveterate  tendency  to  condemn  in 
others  thoughts  which  they  themselves  have  struggled  against, 
and  that  there  is  no  obloquy  that  we  tend  to  mete  out  to  others 
that  is  quite  so  great  as  that  with  which  we  would  visit  the 
faults  we  are  always  fighting  against  in  ourselves  and  no  de- 
lusion greater  than  that  by  severe  judgments  of  others  we 
tend  to  establish  ourselves  more  firmly  in  virtue.  This  is  far 
deeper  than  hypocrisy,  although  the  latter,  of  course,  exists  in 
those  who  ostentatiously  condemn  their  own  secret  vices  in 
others. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  most  young  men,  even  in  col- 
lege, but  especially  years  before,  commit  errors  and  suffer 
grave  dangers  from  ignorance.  Some  have  thought  that  l>e- 
tween  the  ages  of  fifteen  and  twenty  sexual  errors  are  the 
cause  of  more  illness  and  pain  than  all  other  diseases  com- 
bined.    It  is  hard  for  the  young  to  realize  that  the  first  pur- 


47^  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

pose  of  sex  is  procreation  and  not  pleasure,  that  sex  is  a  creative 
function,  that  youth  cannot  become  mature  unless  the  glands 
continue  internal  secretions  which  must  not  be  interfered  with 
by  those  that  are  external.  Sex  is  a  great  quickener  of  mind, 
intelligence  and  especially  of  the  imagination  and  the  higher 
sentiments.  If  there  is  excess  or  defect,  it  is  self-respect,  will, 
mind  power  that  suffer.  The  individual  tends  to  become 
solitary  rather  than  social.  His  individuality  is  not  completed 
because  general  nutrition  is  interfered  with.  Boys  abnormal 
in  sex  are  generally  either  nervous  and  restless  or  dull  and 
always  unable  to  do  continuous,  hard  mental  work.  Thus  the 
sex  organs  have  two  functions :  the  first  is  reproduction  and 
the  other  is  to  give  force  and  energy  to  all  other  parts  and  to 
character  generally.  All  work  involving  great  effort,  either 
mental  or  physical,  requires  sexual  temperance,  and  Delilah 
always  robs  Samson  of  his  strength.  Again,  many  young 
people  do  not  know  that  occasional,  spontaneous  emissions  are 
normal  and  necessary  for  young  men.  The  only  danger  is  ex- 
cess. Sex  is  generally  dormant  as  such  up  to  puberty  and 
should  not  be  too  strong  during  the  earlier  teens.  It  is,  how- 
ever, an  appetite  that  simply  has  to  be  controlled.  Some  of 
the  very  worst  falsehoods  are  commonly  believed.  The  most 
unfortunate  of  these  is  the  notion  that  exercise  of  this  function 
is  a  physical  necessity  or  preserves  virility.  Both  these  prop- 
ositions are  utterly  false.  It  is  precisely  as  physiological  to 
speak  of  exercising  the  lachrymal,  mammary,  or  other  glands 
to  keep  them  from  atrophy.  The  latter  is  caused  by  excess, 
especially  if  it  be  premature.  Dr.  Morrow,  in  whose  admi- 
rable little  pamphlet  these  concise  directions  are  given,  tells  us 
that  he  has  high  authority  in  the  Catholic  Church  for  stating 
that  when  a  lay  brother  who  has  not  taken  vows  leaves  a  mon- 
astery after  a  long  practice  of  chastity  and  marries,  such  unions 
are  generally  very  prolific.  Another  wretched  error  is  that  the 
ordinary  principles  of  truth  and  morals  do  not  apply  in  the 
sphere  of  sex,  and  that  chastity  is  not  natural  for  men  and 
that  nature  will  tolerate  a  wild-oats  period.  Facts  show  that 
it  is  not  the  most  virile,  vigorously  sexed  men  that  are  most 
given  to  licentiousness  but  those  who  have  been  made  weak 
and  irritable  by  unnatural  or  excessive  practices.  Idiots  are 
often  most  active  of  all  sexually.     As  to  the  insistence  that 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  479 

one  has  a  right  to  do  as  he  pleases  in  this  field,  it  can  certainly 
be  said  that  he  has  no  right  to  injure  others.  Wedlock,  with 
children,  should  enter  into  the  life  plan  of  every  young  man. 
He  should  know  that  nearly  all  lewd  women  are  diseased  and 
that  medical  statistics  show  that  those  that  are  youngest  and 
most  attractive  are  now  usually  most  sure  to  be  diseased.  No 
circumspection,  not  even  protectives,  are  effective  safeguards 
against  the  dreadful  taint  of  venereal  disease,  the  main  facts 
of  which  everyone  should  know,  and  especially  that,  in  Dr. 
Morrow's  phrase,  "  a  leper  would  be  infinitely  less  dangerous 
to  others  as  a  source  of  contagion  than  a  syphilitic."  He  adds 
"  the  greatest  criminal  is  he  who  poisons  the  germ  cells,  for 
he  poisons  life  at  its  fountain  head,"  and  "  gonorrhea  and 
syphilis  are  the  most  potent  factors  in  the  depopulation  and 
degeneration  of  the  race."  The  former,  once  thought  to  be 
more  or  less  harmless,  is  now  known  to  be  in  women  the  source 
of  most  of  the  troubles  of  their  sex. 

Drink  that  intoxicates  immensely  increases  sexual  tempta- 
tion. Forel  estimates  that  76.4  per  cent  of  venereal  contamina- 
tions are  made  under  the  influence  of  alcohol  and  that  most 
of  these  occurred  before  the  age  of  twenty-five.  By  far  the 
greatest  temptation  of  student  life  from  the  dawn  of  the  high- 
school  period  through  college  and  even  through  the  university 
is  found  in  this  sphere ;  and  the  only  possible  way  to  meet  it  is 
by  vigorous  assertion  of  the  will  which,  if  it  cannot  control 
this  impulse,  is  liable  to  be  a  cowed  and  beaten  thing.  Of 
course,  control  is  of  all  degrees,  but  this  is  perhaps  another 
chapter. 

My  own  most  radical  belief  is  that  we  shall  never  entirely 
solve  the  complicated  problem  of  sex  education  by  any,  or 
even  by  a  combination  of  all,  special  methods  mentioned  above, 
although  all  of  them  doubtless  have  their  place  and  do  good. 
If  sex  is  as  fundamental  and  all-conditioning  for  human  well- 
l)eing  as  nearly  all  eminent  experts  now  claim,  it  folhnvs  that 
it  nnust  be  made  correspondingly  central  in  educaticMi  in  a 
way  to  unite  its  chief  topics  into  an  organic  whole,  that  fits 
the  successive  stages  of  human  development  so  as  to  utilize 
the  intense  and  unique  interest  that  now  goes  to  waste.  We 
must,  in  a  word,  make  a  si)ecial  curriculum  to  this  end  and 
devise  new  courses  and  text-books.    First,  I  would  have  botany 


48o  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

drawn  on  in  a  series  of  texts  graded  to  age,  more  or  less  apart 
from  the  more  elaborate  laboratory  methods  and  stripped  of 
technical  terminology,  setting  forth  the  methods  of  plant  ferti- 
lization, showing  how  the  male  and  female  parts  differ,  what 
blossoms  and  inflorescence  mean,  how  the  seed  grows, 
and  the  provision  of  nature  for  its  protection,  fertilization, 
and  nutrition,  the  whole  wondrous  story  of  insects  and 
their  role  in  plant  life,  how  the  winds  and  water  and  many 
cunning  and  clever  devices  bring  the  sex  elements  together, 
how  plant  species  increase,  decrease  and  die  out,  what  man 
has  done  from  the  first  domestication  of  cultivated  plants 
down  to  Burbank  and  De  Vries,  etc.  All  the  chief  and  salient 
facts  from  Darwin  down  to  the  present  should  be  culled, 
ordered,  popularized,  and  then  this  basal  part  of  botany  should 
be  given  as  intensely  humanistic  and  moral  a  character  as  pos- 
sible without  being  direct  enough  so  as  to  seem  to  the  pupils 
to  be  shaped  with  that  chief  end  in  view.  The  world  has  never 
yet  had  a  botanist  who  was  also  inspired  by  the  true  spirit  of 
the  pedagogue  and  of  insight  into  the  nature  and  needs  of  the 
child's  soul.  Thus,  up  to  date,  there  is  a  sad  void  in  our 
scheme  of  pubertal  and  prepubertal  education  which  this  topic 
is  admirably  calculated  to  fill.  For  boys,  and  still  more  for 
girls  with  their  intense  love  for  flow^ers,  which  means  so  much 
to  them  that  man  cannot  fathom,^  there  is  a  unique  opportu- 
nity to  feed  this  natural  appetite  now  so  starved.  This  of 
course  would  not  necessitate  for  all,  instruction  concerning 
herbs  and  trees  from  plant  lore  to  forestry  and  gardening,  and 
w^ould  appeal  only  incidentally  to  other  interests  than  those 
that  root  in  reproduction.  The  vitalizing  personal  touch 
comes  only  with  the  sweep  of  the  great  laws  that  make  vege- 
tation eloquent  with  lessons  for  human  family  life.  That  this 
touch  is  rarely  given  in  our  high-school  courses  of  botany  is 
a  wasteful  mistake.^ 

Secondly,  the  same  should  be  done  in  biology,  beginning 
with  the  lower  forms  of  life.     We  have  now  a  vast  body  of 

'  See  A  Study  of  Children's  Interest  in  Flowers,  by  Alice  Thayer.  Pedagogical 
Seminary,  June,  1905,  vol.  12,  pp.  107-140. 

-  In  Prosper  Merimec's  L'Abbe  Aubain,  the  heroine,  beginning  to  love  the 
abb^,  finds  an  old  and  dried  bouquet  and  tries  to  induce  him  to  tell  her  its  history 
but  at  first  in  vain,  so  she  prevails  upon  him  to  teach  her  botany.     In  this  she  says 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  481 

facts  concerning  sex  and  reproduction  in  lowly,  aquatic  forms 
and  still  more  in  insect  life — eggs,  time,  place,  and  manner  of 
deposition,  nests,  home-builders,  larvae,  their  care  and  defense, 
and  all  the  wondrous  instincts  that  show  the  subordination  of 
every  item  in  the  life  of  the  individual  to  the  vaster  interests  of 
the  race  some  outline  of  which  should  be  known  by  every  boy 
and  girl  before  and  during  the  early  teens,  for  this  would  pre- 
pare the  way  for  broader  and  more  harmonious  insight  into 
the  essential  mysteries  of  life,  reproduction,  disease  and  death. 
All  this  is  really  ethical  and  practical  to  the  core,  and  is  the 
vital  breath  and  native  air  to  the  sex  instinct  in  its  period  of 
eclaircissement,  when  it  becomes  dominant  and  needs  intellec- 
tualization  for  its  proper  control  and  guidance.  Then,  too, 
there  are  all  the  lessons  from  the  secondary  sex  qualities — 
antlers,  ornaments,  plumes,  wattles,  and  the  countless  love  an- 
tics and  types  of  animal  courtship  together  with  the  phenom- 
ena of  sexual  selection.  All  these  prepare  the  soul  for  meeting 
the  stresses  of  the  age  of  sex  metamorphosis  and  suggest  what 
parenthood  means  in  the  order  of  nature.  It  is  the  facts  of 
natural  history  rather  than  those  revealed  by  the  microscope 
(which  latter  should  not,  of  course,  be  neglected)  that  are 
needed.  Here,  too,  belong  the  struggle  for  survival,  the  great 
fecundity  of  some  lower  species  and  the  elimination  of  the 
unfit,  and  the  increasing  prevalence  of  better  and  more  adapted 
types  of  life.  Evolution  here  is  full  of  precious  and  yet  un- 
utilized lessons  for  virtue,  and  brings  in  the  larger  view,  cures 
the  myopia  for  time  so  common  in  the  young  that  makes  them 
blind  for  all  the  long-ranged  forces  that  control  human  destiny. 
Here,  too,  belongs  an  outline  of  the  lessons  from  domestica- 
tion, how  and  by  whom  achieved  and  its  effects.  Some  of  the 
laws  of  animal  breeding  as  seen  in  poultry,  pigeons,  horses, 
dogs,  and  domestic  animals  should  have  a  place.  Thus  here 
again  we  need  a  series  of  texts  up  the  grades  by  zo(Jlogists 


she  made  astonishing  proRTCss,  "but  I  had  no  idea  botany  was  so  immoral,  so  hard 
for  a  priest  to  explain.  Flowers,  you  know,  my  dear,  marry  just  as  we  do,  but  most 
have  many  husbands.  One  sot  is  called  pha?nogams— if  I  have  the  harlxirous  name 
—which  means  they  marry  ojjenly  in  the  town  hall;  while  the  cryptogams  marry 
secretly.  It  is  all  very  shocking.  At  first  I  was  so  silly  as  to  shout  with  laughter 
at  the  most  delicate  passages,  but  now  I  am  getting  cautious  and  ask  no  more 
questions." 


482  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

who  are  also  humanistically,  ethically,  and  even  religiously 
minded — a  type  of  expert  rare  indeed  to-day.  Why  does  not 
some  rich  man,  or,  perhaps,  better,  woman  (for  she  would  be 
more  likely  to  see  and  appreciate  this  need)  offer  a  prize  for 
such  texts  of  a  character  which  could  now  be  prescribed  by  a 
syllabus  or  programme  and  which  if  generally  introduced 
would  not  only  mark  an  epoch  in  the  field  of  sex  instruction 
but  would  greatly  raise  the  level  of  intelligence  and  increase 
the  body  of  vital  information  possessed  by  all? 

Thirdly,  in  the  field  of  man's  development  we  also  need 
texts  that  should  deal  delicately,  yet  plainly,  with  the  history 
of  marriage  and  the  family,  not  omitting  the  story  of  woman's 
social  and  domestic  position  up  the  culture  stages,  and  treating 
also  as  systematically  and  economically  as  possible  of  a  large 
variety  of  such  topics  as  the  care,  treatment,  and  training  of 
children,  apart  from  the  specific  education  of  the  school.  There 
should  be  a  brief  outline  of  educational  history,  and  the  story 
of  the  home,  much  about  parenthood,  and  the  influences  that 
tend  to  magnify  or  destroy  its  importance.  In  this  domain,  at 
least  in  the  college  grade,  should  come  some  treatment  of  both 
the  culture  history  and  the  physical  and  pathological  aspects 
of  sex  diseases  and  weaknesses  that  undermine  races  and 
nations,  the  causes  of  infertility,  race  suicide,  the  nature  of 
adolescence  and  senescence,  the  age  of  nubility,  the  hygiene 
of  wedlock,  and  I  am  inclined  to  think  something  rather 
specific  concerning  the  virtues  of  fatherhood  and  motherhood 
before  and  after  childbirth ;  and  such  a  course  should  not  omit 
mention  of  the  social  evil,  white  slave  traffic,  prostitution  and 
its  regulation,  pornographic  literature,  art,  and  the  laws  and 
work  of  the  societies  for  the  suppression  of  obscenity  and  vice. 
Divorce  should  have  a  brief  chapter  and  eugenics  a  longer  one. 
There  should  also  be  something  concerning  the  psychology 
of  sex  and  love,  together  with  its  history  in  various  ages 
and  its  meaning.  An  important  chapter  would  deal  with  the 
relations  between  the  various  religions  and  sex,  and  another 
would  show  how  the  imagination  and  the  feelings  root  in  and 
irradiate  from  this  part  of  our  nature,  and  how  inconceivably 
plastic  the  instinct  is.  There  should  also  be  some  hint  of  its 
grosser  forms,  and  how  these  often  very  repulsive  factors  may 
be  sublimated   and  spiritualized  into  love  of  the  good,  the 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  483 

beautiful,  and  the  true,  and  transformed  into  ambition,  achieve- 
ment, creativeness,  and  the  rest.  Something  should  be  taught 
concerning  the  forms  of  temptation  and  the  modes  of  resist- 
ing it,  and  a  little  about  the  social  treatment  of  girls  who  go 
wrong.  Certain  common  errors  concerning  the  reproductive 
function  and  its  control  need  explicit  refutation.  No  young 
man  or  maiden  should  graduate  without  some  knowledge  of 
the  hot  battle  between  virtue  and  vice  that  goes  on  in  every 
individual  soul  and  in  every  community.  All  this  should  be 
taught,  of  course  to  the  sexes  separately — more  directly  to 
young  men,  more  indirectly  and  more  affectively  to  young 
women — to  the  end  that  they  be  intelligently  interested  if  not 
enlisted  in  the  agencies  of  social  welfare  and  informed  of  the 
work  of  all  the  chief  societies  that  work  in  so  many  ways  for 
purity  and  for  posterity.  Such  a  course  might  long-circuit  the 
physical  instinct  and  refine  the  soul  and  bring  it  into  living 
rapport  with  the  moral  forces  of  the  world,  insure  against 
personal  error,  and  preform  choices,  bringing  enlightenment 
into  a  field  now  festering  with  ignorance,  error,  and  supersti- 
tion. The  texts  needed  here  would  of  course  also  be  of  a  new 
type  that  does  not  now  exist. 

Now,  if  we  could  have  a  society  of  all  purity  societies  to 
organize  the  various  medical,  religious,  and  sociological  en- 
deavors leavened  by  the  right  admixture  of  biological,  physio- 
logical, and  psychological  knowledge,  such  courses  might  well 
be  set  up  as  the  goal  of  such  an  organization.  It  has  not  yet 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive  the  amount  of  genu- 
ine scientific  knowledge  that  a  deep  interest  in  sex  could  carry 
and  vitalize.  No  other  apperception  organ  has  such  power  to 
learn  or  assimilate.  The  acquisition  of  knowledge  which  this 
zest  could  effect — and  that  naturally  and  without  fatigue — is 
probably  quite  incredible.  Thus  the  plea  for  such  a  new  curric- 
ulum might  rest  its  claims  solely  upon  mental  economy,  and 
find  here  a  new  noetic  faculty  not  yet  brought  into  action 
in  the  educational  field.  In  the  higher  pedagogy,  the  altar  of 
this  new  muse  will  occupy  a  very  central  place.  This  kind  of 
knowledge  has  little  need  of  the  methods  of  review  and  exam- 
ination;  but  if  taught  aright,  and  in  due  sef|ucncc.  richly  set 
with  illustrations,  it  would  sink  deep  and  at  once,  by  what  the 
scholastics  called  "  first  intention."     This  kind  of  knowledge 


484  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

has  no  need  of  analysis  or  of  methodization  (save  whether  its 
items  fit  ages)  or  demonstration,  but  is  apprehended  as  a 
whole.  I  am  convinced  that  it  would  bring  at  once  a  great 
increase  of  intelligence  into  the  world.  We  should  be  surprised 
to  see  how  this  new  interest  would  not  only  augment  acquisi- 
tion in  its  own  but  irradiate  into  other  fields.  The  knowledge 
thus  acquired,  too,  would  have  a  practical  cast  for  any  other 
sort  of  knowledge,  because  so  near  to  the  Platonic  ideal  that 
knowing  is  doing,  for  to  know  virtue  is  at  least  halfway  to 
being  virtuous. 

To  those  inclined  to  object  to  the  plainness  of  instruction 
advocated  above,  I  would  reply  that  the  specific  studies  of  the 
minds  of  childhood  and  youth  show  that  they  contain  welter- 
ing masses  of  falsehoods,  half  truths,  and  errors,  some  of 
which  are  quite  prone  to  bring  moral  and  physical  disaster,  and 
that  the  budget  of  information  that  they  actually  possess  con- 
tains indecencies  unsuspected  by  parents  or  teachers,  compared 
with  which  all  outlined  above  is  purity  and  chastity  itself.  More 
than  this,  the  errors  due  to  withholding  truth  cause  incalcu- 
lable waste  of  mental  and  nervous  energy,  bring  distrust  of 
the  veracity  of  parents,  false  theories,  worries,  fears  and  un- 
certainties galore,  clog  and  arrest  the  very  intellect,  muddle 
conscience,  and  mislead  the  will,  disorient  the  feelings,  and 
lay  the  foundations  for  many  a  neurosis  and  psychosis  later, 
when  plain  information  would  disentangle  anxious  perplexi- 
ties, remove  deep  and  often  unconscious  worries  and  tensions, 
bring  a  great  peace  and  normalization  of  soul  and  enable  youth 
to  face  the  world  with  new  courage,  hope,  and  resolution,  to 
say  nothing  of  causing  marked  reenforcement  of  health  by  re- 
moving neuroses  and  mental  symptoms  themselves,  which  are 
so  prone  to  prevent  the  attainment  of  full  maturity  of  body 
and  soul.  Of  all  the  many  needs  of  education,  I  have  slowly 
come  to  believe  something  like  this  is  the  chief  one.  Like  fire, 
sex  is  a  wonderfully  effective  servant  but  the  most  disastrous 
of  all  agents  if  it  becomes  master. 

To  those  who  say  we  cannot  work  out  such  a  course  be- 
cause there  are  no  people  who  have  the  rare  combination  of 
scientific  and  ethical  humanistic  qualifications  required,  I  reply 
that  this  difficulty  is  indeed  grave.  The  pure  scientist,  who 
would  follow  the  truth  wherever  it  leads,  is  as  impatient  of  the 


THE    PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  485 

demands  of  moralism  as  the  artist  who  cultivates  art  for  art's 
sake  alone.  Most  physicians  seem  tied — sorrjp  to  be  sure  with 
longer,  some  with  shorter  tether — to  their  collection  of  horrid 
facts  and  figures  concerning  disease,  and  hence  rely  too  much 
on  the  appeal  to  fear,  knowing  very  little  of  the  broad  bio- 
logical basis  of  sex  and  nothing  of  sex  psychology,  and  with 
no  adequate  appreciation  of  the  far  harder  but  yet  more  effect- 
ive prophylactics  of  enthusiasm  for  physical  development  or  of 
zest  in  intellectual  and  religious  things.  Most  puritists  have 
zeal  without  sufficient  knowledge.  Thus  none  realize  the  full 
magnitude  of  the  problem  or  the  all-pervasive  dominance  of 
what  is  at  root  sexual ;  and  hence  all  tend  to  emphasize  their 
own  partial  ways  and  find  it  hard  to  rise  to  a  higher  synthesis 
of  effort  now  needed.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  still 
force  in  the  old  dictum  of  Kant :  that  what  we  ought  to  do  we 
can  do;  hence  I  am  optimist  enough  to  believe  that  a  new  co- 
operation of  organizations  and  efforts  will  sooner  or  later  bring 
both  the  realization  of  this  need  and  methods  of  meeting  it, 
even  though  this  insight  may  come  slowly  and  piecemeal.  A 
long,  hard,  and  joint  effort  alone  can  do  what  is  necessary. 
For  one,  I  am  not  without  hope  that  in  these  days  of  the 
higher  education  of  women,  although  colleges  designed  for 
them  in  this  country  now  usually  ignore  all  these  questions 
and  women's  clubs  taboo  it,  there  will  be  found  here,  sooner 
or  later,  as  in  Germany  already,  women  well  trained  in  the 
biological,  medical,  and  social  sciences  who  will  come  forward 
to  grapple  with  this  theme,  inspired  by  woman's  greater  sense 
of  the  social,  moral,  and  religious  forces  involved,  and  help 
the  western  world  to  do  this  one  thing  needful.  The  situation 
surely  ought  to  make  a  peculiar  appeal  to  woman  and  her  peda- 
gogic instincts  even  if  they  are  often  somewhat  atrophied, 
because  she  can  be  educated  with  less  danger  of  being  dwarfed 
by  specialization.  Thus  again  das  Ezing-WciblicJic,  if  it  mean 
woman's  more  generic,  intuitive,  and  conservative  nature 
which  makes  her  stand  closer  to  the  race  and  gives  her  greater 
interest  in  seeking  to  hold  it  true  to  its  destiny,  may  here  l)e 
our  hope  and  may  perform  for  us  a  new  Diotima  function. 
She  certainly  ought  to  be  interested  in  the  applications  of  the 
new  psychology  (jf  se.x  to  the  new  and  higher  criticism  of 
literature  that  might  at  once  have  its  place  in  girls'  colleges 


486  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

for  its  purely  scholastic  as  well  as  pragmatic  value.  Being 
established  here,  possibly  these  interests  might  irradiate  into 
the  more  practical  spheres  of  life.  Perhaps  if  we  could  subject 
the  suffragette  mind  to  psycho-analysis,  the  instinct  to  be  of 
more  social  and  political  influence  might  turn  out  to  have  a 
yet  better  expression  in  some  such  service.^ 

For  youth,  sex  pedagogy  is  too  large  and  progressive  a 
theme  and  the  need  is  too  great  to  limit  it  entirely  to  pupil- 
lary or  even  academic  grades.  There  is  much  which,  while  it 
might  be  taught  before,  should  at  least  and  latest  be  known  to 
all  those  of  either  sex  fully  nubile  or  contemplating  wedlock. 
Into  this  field  one  might  well  hesitate  to  enter,  because  it  is 
now  chiefly  divided  between  prudes  and  quacks  and  because 
science  itself  is  not  ripe  to  do  justice  to  the  subject,  and  still 
more  because  the  limitations  of  one's  personal  knowledge  and 
distrust  of  his  own  judgment  are  made  almost  painfully  con- 
scious. Let  it  be  distinctly  understood  then  that  what  follows 
is  put  forward  only  after  much  hesitation  with  a  profound  sense 
that  it  is  only  a  tentative  first  effort  to  do  two  things :  first, 
to  popularize  certain  fundamental  biological  and  physiological 
facts  for  pragmatic  needs ;  and  secondly,  to  bring  a  little  more 
into  the  consciousness  of  those  who  need  it  what  the  psy- 
chology of  fatherhood  and  motherhood,  in  a  sense  most  vital  to 
all  who  have  experienced  them,  mean ;  but  which  has  never  to 
my  knowledge  before  been  set  forth  in  print. 

Not  birth,  but  impregnation  marks  the  beginning  of  life. 
For  the  psychologist,  however,  it  arises  still  earlier  in  the  mu- 
tual appetency  of  the  mature  ovum  and  sperm  cell  for  each 
other  which  manifests  itself  in  the  soma  as  love.  Of  each  of 
these,  especially  the  sperm  cell,  the  development  history  is  very 
complex  and  still  obscure.  The  life,  growth,  and  all  the  activ- 
ity of  the  male  and  female  body  and  soul  up  to  the  age  of  full 


*  See  Schriften  zur  angewandten  Seelenkunde,  edited  by  Sigmund  Freud, 
especially  Der  Wahn  und  die  Traume  in  W.  Jensen's  "Gradiva,"  by  Sigmund 
Freud.  Heller,  Wien,  1907,  81  p.  Traum  und  Mythus,  von  Karl  Abraham. 
Deuticke,  Leipzig,  1909,  74  p.  Der  Mythus  von  der  Geburt  des  Helden,  von 
Otto  Rank.  Deuticke,  Leipzig,  1909,  93  p.  Wunscherfiillung  und  Symbolik 
im  Marchen,  von  F.  Riklin.  Heller,  Wien,  1908,  96  p.  See  also  The  Oedipus- 
Complex  as  an  Explanation  of  Hamlet's  Mystery:  A  Study  in  Motive,  by  Ernest 
Jones.     Amer.  Jour,  of  Psychol.,  Jan.,  1910,  vol.  21,  pp.  72-113. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  487 

nubility  has  for  biology  as  its  supreme  entelechy  the  production 
and  ripening  of  these  master  cells.  As  they  are  the  souls  of 
the  body,  perhaps  the  chromosomes  are  their  souls.  These 
cells  are  the  fruit,  as  adolescence  is  the  blossom  of  the  human 
plant.  They  are  bearers  of  the  immortal  plasma  which  con- 
nects us  by  a  direct  continuum  with  the  first  anthropoid  and 
back  through  it  with  the  first  amoeboid  form  of  life  in  the 
activities  of  which  genetic  psychology  properly  begins.  There 
is  a  protoplasmic  bridge,  therefore,  between  the  present  and 
every  preceding  generation  back  to  the  dawn  of  life,  every 
form  of  which  perhaps  converges  backward  to  one  cell  or  bit 
of  protoplasm  from  which  it  all  arose,  so  that  all  that  lives 
belongs  to  one  family.  In  the  interests  of  germ  plasm  every 
other  tissue  and  organ  of  the  soma  is  developed  from  the 
simplest  flagellum  and  tentacle  up  to  the  human  body.  In  the 
lowest  forms  of  life  single  cells  grew  large  until  they  could 
no  longer  be  nourished  from  without  when  they  must  either 
divide  or  die.  They  chose  the  former  alternative.  When  the 
mother  cell  split  up  into  two  daughter  cells  there  was  no  loss 
of  matter  or  of  energy,  but  new  powers  of  growth  and  nutri- 
tion were  set  in  action.  These  cells  in  time  divided  again  and 
so  on  for  countless  generations.  There  was  no  rupture  of 
continuity,  nothing  was  sloughed  off  as  a  corpse.  Each  pro- 
tozoan cell  was  essentially  reproductive.  A  little  higher  up 
the  scale  of  life  this  immortal  and  ever-dividing  germ  sub- 
stance develops  special  organs  to  serve  its  purposes.  These 
just  in  proportion  as  they  are  specialized  lose  reproductive 
power,  that  is,  are  subject  to  death.  When  a  new  organism 
bifurcates  off  from  the  old,  these  specialized  tissues  and  organs 
are  sloughed  off,  and  thus  as  we  go  up  the  scale  we  can  trace 
the  development  of  the  corpse  and  thus  of  death.  Successive 
generations  are  only  deciduous  leaves,  pulses,  or  nodes  in  the 
endless  life  of  the  plasma.  Once  there  was  no  sex,  but  all  its 
dimorphism  was  evolved  to  widen  the  range  of  useful  vari- 
ation and  to  give  growth  and  momentum  acceleration  and  thus 
to  make  for  progress  and  also  to  cause  rejiroduction  to  be 
more  economical.  Why  the  male  and  ftinnk'  cell  which  di- 
verged from  a  lower  differentiated  type  attract  each  other,  no 
theory  of  tropism  or  hunger  can  explain.  The  soma  is  subject 
to  old  age,  but  even  all  its  noneliminations  cannot  poison  the 


488  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

germ  plasm  which  is  the  seat  of  memory  just  so  surely  as 
memory  is  continuity  of  vibrations. 

In  nearly  all  that  pertains  to  the  transmission  of  life,  as  so 
often  in  matters  of  less  importance,  consciousness  says  one 
thing  but  means  something  very  different.  Lovers  think  of 
their  ow^n  happiness,  but  are  really  acting  in  the  interests  of 
the  race.  The  intellect  is  largely  a  product  of  individual  ex- 
perience, but  instincts,  feelings,  and  impulses  which  are  larger 
and  deeper  represent  the  species  and  are  relatively  blind.  These 
now  assume  control  and  act  sub  specie  ccternatis  for  the  race 
which  is  infinite  and  immortal.  This  unconscious  nisus,  not 
ourselves,  that  acts  for  posterity,  is  really  the  voice  of  another 
generation  demanding  to  be  born  and  well  born.  The  plasm 
now  dominates  the  mortal  soma  and  all  that  goes  with  it,  in- 
cluding conscious  intellect.  Thus,  love  serves  the  interests  of 
a  new  individual  and  is  only  the  annunciation  that  another  life 
has  begun  to  move  toward  incarnation.  When  two  germ  cells 
would  fuse,  all  in  the  body  and  soul  of  the  two  adult  organ- 
isms containing  them  is  led  willing  captive  and  is  impelled  to 
conduct  and  thought  that  transcend  selfish  interests  and  do  not 
fit  or  comport  with  those  of  the  individual.  The  conduct  and 
mood  of  normal  lovers,  however,  is  true  to  the  unborn,  to  the 
future,  and  to  the  genus.  Lovers  are  caught  in  a  vortex  and 
defy  reason,  custom,  danger,  and  even  death.  This,  poetry  and 
romance  rightly  represent  as  the  apparition  of  a  higher  power 
that  can  profoundly  reconstruct  the  inner  and  outer  life  and 
convert  selfishness  to  altruism.  Blind  as  it  is  to  knowledge 
and  deaf  to  counsel  and  rebellious  to  outer  constraint  and 
reckless  of  personal  advantage,  it  is,  at  its  best  and  strongest, 
sagacious  and  loyal  to  the  interests  of  the  child  that  is  to  be. 
It  is  keen  to  appreciate  beauty,  but  real  beauty  of  form,  fea- 
ture, grace  in  man  or  woman  is  only  the  perfect  expression  of 
health  and  wholeness,  and  strength  and  gracefulness  are  ripe- 
ness, mental  vigor,  and  charms  are  sanity;  i.  e.,  perfection  of 
form  means  ability  to  bear  and  nourish  offspring  in  women 
and  strength  in  man  means  protection  and  power  to  provide. 
Perhaps  Schopenhauer  is  right  that  each  sex  seeks  rectifica- 
tion in  the  other  in  the  interests  of  posterity.  If  so  there  must 
be  some  counterpart  relation  of  complexion,  temperament, 
size,  and  perfect  love  could  arise  only  between  highly  individ- 


THE   PEDAGOGY    OF    SEX  489 

ualized  men  and  women  each  of  whom  essentially  supple- 
mented and  corrected  every  deviation  from  the  norm  in  exact 
proportion  and  in  both  body  and  soul,  for  then  offspring 
would  stand  midway  between  both  parents  and  would  approxi- 
mate the  type  in  every  particular.  This  would  explain  the 
constant  inspection  and  examination  of  each  sex  by  the  other, 
the  instant  perception  of  mutual  fitness  that  may  occur  and 
also  the  natural  aversion  of  those  whose  peculiarities  would 
by  summation  remove  the  offspring  still  farther  from  the  norm 
or  mean.  Offspring  are  thus  a  part  of  the  body,  and  love  of 
offspring  is  part  of  self-love. 

Inclination  of  two  lives  is,  in  Schopenhauer's  phrase,  the 
will  to  live  of  a  new  being.  The  desire  to  fuse  is  at  root  to 
realize  the  better  synthesis  of  amphimixis.  In  love  we  have 
an  apparition  of  the  true  nature  of  the  species.  The  individ- 
ual loves  what  he  lacks.  He  would  match  his  manhood  with 
her  womanhood  and  rectify  their  mutual  deviation.  There  is 
some  illusion  needed.  The  individual  is  seeking  his  own  aims 
but  really  accomplishing  those  of  the  race.  Love  is  at  the  same 
time  the  acme  of  individuation  and  the  apparition  of  the 
species  in  an  individual  life.  It  deals  with  the  deeper  forces 
before  which  human  law  is  froth.  Man's  love  often  begins  to 
decline  when  that  of  the  woman  begins  to  increase.  To  avoid 
salacity  and  venery,  to  keep  it  on  the  highest  plane,  to  develop 
all  its  myrianomus  forms  of  expression,  to  keep  the  Platonic 
ladder  open,  is  perhaps  the  chief  earthly  aim. 

In  love  there  are  endless  plots  and  side  plays.  Creation  sets 
the  stage;  nature  is  its  scenery;  the  fading  of  its  visions  is 
its  tragedy;  experience  is  learning  its  stage  technic.  Earth 
was  cold  and  pitiless  till  love  came  and  gave  all  things  meaning. 
We  do  not  love  in  others  what  we  hate  in  ourselves,  hut  what 
we  lack.  Love  means  giving  up  one-sidedncss.  Osmosis, 
tropism  and  contrectation  give  new  interest  even  to  touch, 
especially  in  crstus,  and  perhaps  cause  vascular  congestion. 
Courtship  is  sex  selection  and  protoplasmic  hunger.  Only  the 
imperfect  love.  Projecting  self  into  posterity  means  lust  of 
immortality.  Preparation  for  parenthood  should  1k'  long,  de- 
tailed, little  should  be  left  to  chance,  and  tlic  priority  of 
woman  should  l)e  respected  if  all  is  to  be  immaculate.  Fear 
of  death  and  shame  of  sex  go  together.     The  focalization  and 


49©  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

obsession  is  progressive  and  by  many  stages  and  there  is  a  sub- 
sequent long  period  of  systematization.  Each  attracts  all  of 
the  other  sex  and  is  attracted.  From  the  stage  of  phallicism 
to  the  highest  conception  of  God  as  love,  is  yet  a  long  way  to 
travel. 

Each  mature  sex  cell  then  tends  to  fuse  and  merge  with 
one  of  the  opposite  sex  and  far  down  below  consciousness 
each  is  drawn  to  and  calls  the  other.  The  will  of  each  to  live 
is  now  solely  the  will  to  find  the  other,  else  both  must  die  with 
all  their  complex,  ancient,  and  slowly  evolved  potentialities. 
That  most  do  so  is  really  the  primeval  and  supreme  pathos 
of  nature.  Though  unknown  save  to  science,  and  so  unwept, 
this  preconjugal  stage  is  one  of  vastly  greater  mortality  than 
that  of  all  the  later  stages  of  development  combined.  Every 
such  cell  that  perishes  is  the  extinction  of  an  ancestral  line 
that  runs  back  to  the  beginning  of  life  and  one  of  the  chief 
efforts  of  nature  in  evolving  the  higher  orders  of  life  is  to 
economize  this  tragic  waste  of  what  has  cost  so  much.  The 
processes,  minute  as  they  are,  by  which  these  cells  were  evolved 
are  more  intricate,  more  vital,  and  probably  took  more  time 
than  all  the  subsequent  stages  by  which  the  soma,  i.  e.,  the 
rest  of  the  body  of  animals,  was  developed.  If  we  only  knew 
all  the  stages  of  evolution  of  germ  plasm  even  as  well  as  we 
do  what  follows  the  union  of  these  cells,  we  should  realize  that 
the  saddest  and  most  wasteful  fact  in  the  world  is  that  such 
a  vast  majority  of  them  die  unwed.  In  this  fact  the  pessi- 
mism of  the  future  will  find  its  strongest  basis.  However  slight 
the  influence  of  the  life  of  the  individual  or  even  of  a  long 
series"  of  generations  is  upon  the  marvelous  structure  and 
function  of  the  sex  cells,  their  potencies  contain  somehow  the 
most  perfect  and  indeed  the  only  true  history,  because  in  these 
is  about  all  that  Nature  found  it  worth  her  while  to  preserve. 
They  epitomize  all  quintessential  values  and  most  truly  re- 
member all  the  really  important  things  that  have  happened  in 
all  the  past  of  life. 

Thus,  it  is  the  cells  which  conjugate  and  they  alone  that 
experience  the  great  salvation  while  all  others  are  destroyed, 
and  in  their  obliteration  all  the  processes  that  evolved  them  are 
made  vain  and  nugatory.  Even  their  vast  number  was 
evolved  to  increase  the  chances  of  fertilization  for  the  few 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  49i 

elect  that  achieved  the  great  goal  of  meeting  their  counter- 
parts ;  for  colors,  ornaments,  sex  organs  and  all  secondary  sex 
qualities,  selection  itself  and  every  device  of  animal  and  human 
courtship,  even  love,  are  to  lessen  this  prodigality  of  loss. 
Truly  biological  thought  sees  in  the  struggle  of  these  cells  to 
survive  by  merging  their  individual  being  in  each  other,  the 
original  spring  of  love  which  in  all  its  multifarious  expressions 
is  only  serving  this  call  of  cells  for  one  another.  Far  beneath 
all  conscious  purpose  and  effort  this  is  basal  and  dominant 
throughout.  With  this  cell  appetency  as  its  kinetic  mainspring, 
love  has  become  the  mightiest  power  in  the  human  soul  and 
therefore  will  be  the  most  important  theme  in  a  complete 
science  of  psychology.  Nothing  else  so  easily  or  so  often 
conquers  death  itself  and  subdues  and  even  reverses  the  uni- 
versal stniggle  to  survive  till  the  individual  wills  to  die  for  the 
larger  interest  of  the  race.  In  no  other  field  are  conscious 
interpretations  of  motives  or  acts  so  inadequate,  and  despite 
the  fact  that  the  welfare  of  the  species  is  so  generally  or  entire- 
ly thought  to  be  that  of  the  personality  alone. 

To  understand  the  specific  form  of  sex  shame  involved  in  cover- 
ing and  uncovering  the  body  we  have  to  accept  the  indications  that 
from  so  many  diverse  fields  converge  to  the  conclusion  that  at  some 
early  and  probably  long-enduring  stage  of  human  evolution  man  was 
proud  of  his  sex  and  ostentatious  of  not  only  the  organs  but  of  all, 
at  least  anatomical,  if  not  most  physiological  manifestations  of  its 
activities.  In  very  many  animal  forms  nature's  system  of  ornamen- 
tation centers  about  those  parts  in  the  male.  The  young  male  was 
not  only  conscious  but  conceited  of  his  recently  developed  virility. 
As  flowers  are  ornamented  sex  parts,  although  their  beauties  are 
addressed  not  to  flowers  of  the  other  sex  but  to  fertilizing  insects, 
so  the  very  plan  on  which  man's  soul  and  even  his  body  is  organized 
is  such  as  to  call  attention  to  these  parts  and  functions,  variation  in 
which  is  extremely  manifold,  and  what  is  more  important,  character- 
istic and  envitalizing.  After  so  many  superposed  strata  of  restrained 
concealment  and  convention  that  have  now  become  instinctive  and 
hereditary,  it  is  very  hard  but  yet  probably  necessary  to  conclude 
that  the  uncovered  organs  themselves  were  once  the  very  focus  of 
interest  and  charm,  and  that  sight  was  the  leading  erogenic  zone. 
Only  thus  can  we  explain  the  impulse  of  the  exhibitif)nists,  wliich  is 
thus  seen  to  be  a  psychic,  as  harelip  is  a  somatic,  rudiment.  How 
strong  this  impulse  is  in  pubescent  boys,  despite  ages  of  repression, 
masses  of  unprintable  and,  to  those  unacfpiainted  with  the  facts,  in- 
credible data,  show.     Phallic  worship,  traces  of   which   are    found 


492  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

among  every  race,  is  also  in  part  an  expression  of  the  sense  of  the 
supreme  attractiveness  of  these  parts  and  their  functions,  and  it 
teaches  us  their  value  as  apperception  centers  to  explain  the  proc- 
esses if  not  the  origin  of  the  world  by  procreative  symbols.  This 
first  prepared  and  predisposed  the  psychic  soil  to  receive  in  due  time 
the  lofty  doctrine  of  the  fatherhood  of  God  in  all  its  first  crass 
sensuous  literature,  and  later  in  its  spiritual  form  as  love  became 
sublimated  and  purified.  Gross  and  carnal  as  this  genetic  factor 
of  our  higher  religious  life  was,  the  frank  acceptance  of  it  confirms 
faith  in  religion  by  purifying  that  one  of  its  rudiments  which  springs 
from  this  old  and  strong  instinct  and  augments  confidence  in  human 
nature  because  it  has  made  a  thing  so  high  out  of  one  originally  so 
low.  Even  phallicism  was  soteriological ;  that  is,  it  was  a  product  of 
man's  instinct  to  save  himself  by  sanctifying  parts,  ritualizing  acts, 
generalizing  ideas  and  purifying  functions  felt  to  be  of  momentous 
import  and  at  the  same  time  in  need  of  control. 

The  conclusion  that  the  primitive  instincts  show  off  precisely 
what  man  now  almost  everywhere  so  strongly  tends  to  conceal  really 
rests  upon  evidence  that  cannot  be  adduced.  Its  foundations  are  in 
returns  not  fit  to  print  concerning  boys  whose  instincts  are  unre- 
strained and  who  are  often  thought  more  degenerate  than  they  really 
are,  and  also  in  the  repulsive,  yet  psychogenetically  very  instructive 
literature  of  sexual  perversions  and  inversions,  especially  in  those 
forms  of  aberration  that  are  most  often  found  among  the  young 
and  are  thus  more  spontaneous,  involving  competitive  pride  in  every 
structural  and  functional  manifestation  of  virility  and  in  the  as- 
sumption of  supreme  interest  therein  by  the  other  sex.  This  be- 
comes abnormal  and  excessive  and  is  without  parallel  in  any  of  the 
forms  of  subhuman  or  animal  life.  This  hypertrophy  of  this  part 
of  man's  nature  thus  marks  his  point  of  divergence  from  that  of 
the  lower  forms.  The  development  of  human  nature  contributed  to 
make  these  parts  and  functions  more  focal  to  consciousness  and  that 
in  several  ways  in  the  here  tabooed  literature. 

How,  then,  did  sex  shame  and  modesty  first  arise?  All  modern 
studies  only  confirm  the  faint  hints  of  the  book  of  Genesis;  the  post- 
coital state  of  flaccidity  and  exhaustion  demolishes  at  a  blow  the 
above  pride  by  reducing  suddenly  to  a  prepubertal  or  sexless  state, 
so  that  it  is  precisely  this  exhibitive  instinct  that  is  temporarily 
annihilated;  and  here  modesty  begins  in  the  reaction.  It  is  in  this 
state  that  hiding  and  concealment  and  conscious  shame  arose.  This 
neutral  condition  is  normal  but  becomes  socially  conscious  just  in  so 
far  as  the  virile  state  had  before  been  ostentatious.  It  would  have 
been  felt  only  toward  the  mate  if  she  alone  had  been  made  aware 
of  the  precedent  tension  and  there  would  have  been  less  desire  to 
escape  from  this  condition  into  the  active  state.  But  there  is  now 
enhanced  consciousness  of  others  not  only  of  the  opposite  sex 
especially  during  turgescence  but  of  those  of  the  same  sex  who 
despise  the  neuter  state.     Thus  excess  arose  because  ostentatious- 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  493 

ness  before  clothing  or  the  youthful  impulse  to  exhibition  alternated 
with  detumescence  and  it  was  in  the  latter  case  that  the  instinct  for 
clothing,  at  least  local,  arose.  Had  there  been  absolute  morality  of 
gratification  for  offspring  only,  man  might  have  remained  naked  but 
unashamed.  First,  however,  his  old  sex  pride,  born  of  precoital 
vigor,  entered  upon  a  conflict  with  the  humiliation  by  gratification, 
and  the  latter  in  time  won,  because  depletive  states  with  their  attend- 
ant shame  were  prepotent  over  the  old  erethic  consciousness  and  man 
grew  more  ashamed  because  he  had  been  too  proud.  We  can  imag- 
ine a  period  of  which  there  is,  to  be  sure,  little  anthropological 
evidence  now  extant,  when  man  was  covered  in  the  relaxed  and 
exposed  in  the  tense  state,  and  many  kinds  of  clothing  are  effective 
only  in  the  former  condition.  There  were,  of  course,  other  motives 
for  concealment  of  the  detumescent  state.  They  would  advertise 
perhaps  illegitimate  indulgence,  aid  in  tracing  those  who  had  been 
guilty,  proclaim  a  degree  of  exhaustion  from  its  local  signs  whether 
due  to  excess  or  the  approaching  debility  of  age.  Impuissance  has 
always  been  held  to  be  a  reproach  and  the  advance  of  this  stage 
causes  acute  mortification  which  is  the  obverse  of  primitive  pride. 
Finally,  signs  of  vigor  here  mean  virility,  and  the  formidableness 
of  many  an  enemy  decreases  with  the  physical  symptoms  of  exhaus- 
tion.^ 

The  promptings  of  the  sex  instinct  in  the  soul,  especially  in  that 
of  women,  are  so  submerged  that  they  are  often  unconscious  of  its 
very  existence,  even  though  their  life  be  largely  made  or  marred 
according  to  the  degree  of  their  normality.  While  the  unwritten 
canons  and  codes  of  frankness  differ  very  much  in  different  ages, 
lands,  and  circles,  there  are  always  and  everywhere  limits  which 
conversation,  literature,  art,  must  not  cross.  These  are  found  in 
even  the  periods  of  most  license  and  impunity.  Again,  parents  often 
feel  an  almost  insuperable  reluctance  to  speak  plainly  of  things  in 
this  field  to  their  children,  as  do  children  to  parents;  while  patients 
are  armed  as  with  a  triple  mail  of  resistance  against  confessing  to 
their  physicians  things  that  the  latter  need  to  know.  The  tensions 
caused  by  these  manifold  repressions  constitute  a  long  and  intri- 
cate chapter  in  the  pathology  of  sex,  and  are  connected  as  cause 
and  effect  or  both  with  nearly  every  form  of  aberration.  Lies — 
conscious,  unconscious,  spoken,  acted,  social,  personal — have  here 
their  chief  center  and  stronghold.     Here  a  sense  of  sin,  melancholy, 

'  Richard  UnRcwittcr,  author  of  Die  Nackthcit  and  also  Nackt  represents 
a  movement  in  Germany  for  the  direct  cult  of  nudity.  Those  who  advocate  this 
cult  urge  that  occasional  exhibitions  unclad  to  others  would  Ix'  a  vcr)'  great  stimulus 
to  body  culture  and  would  increase  the  aesthetic  feeling  ff)r  the  human  form  divine; 
and  if  such  exhibitions  were  public  and  held  in  the  morning,  much  good  might  l)c 
done.  H.  Pudor  distinguishes  this  movement  with  the  greatest  moral  vigor  from 
evening  stage  and  jiopular  nudities,  which  have  the  opposite  effect  from  that  which 
this  movement  strives  to  develop. 


494  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

and  every  depressive  state  has  its  chief  and  hidden  root;  manifesta- 
tions of  human  life,  including  religion  itself,  go  with  normality.  Thus 
it  is  no  wonder  that  psychic  pressure  between  opposing  forces  is 
here  so  great,  and  the  contradictions  so  diametrical  that  it  is  harder 
to  be  sane  and  temperate  in  speaking  or  writing  upon  this  topic  than 
upon  any  other.  Here  moderate  men  become  dogmatic  and  extreme, 
the  taciturn  becomes  loquacious,  or  vice  versa;  and  mental  poise 
seems  almost  as  hard  as  perfect  moral  self-control.  Moreover,  all 
problems  here  are  so  infinitely  complex — because  so  many  of  the 
chief  interests  of  life  center  here.  A  recent  writer  finds  over  five 
hundred  different  theories  of  the  nature  of  reproduction,  showing 
that  even  science  has  lost  its  bearings  in  this  realm  where  poetic 
license  is  always  allowed  the  greatest  literary  extravagances,  for 
who  is  so  fond  of  superlatives  as  the  amorist?  one  of  whom  ex- 
claims :  "  Who  has  ever  loved  without  perjury  ? "  and  another 
"  What  gentleman  would  not  lie  here  to  shield  his  honor  or  that  of 
a  lady?"  Has  man  become  morbidly  self-conscious  here?  Has  he 
a  sense  of  fear  or  guilt?  Is  our  own  experience  or  the  facts  we 
observe  too  painful  to  contemplate,  and  far  more  so  to  confess  or 
teach  the  lessons  of  to  others?  Obscenity  alone  breaks  ruthlessly 
through  all  barriers  and  finds  satisfaction,  if  a  brutal,  coarse  one,  in 
so  doing.  It  may  give  surcease  from  the  ubiquitous  constraints  and 
bring  a  sense  of  freedom  that  always  has  a  certain  sense  of  relief 
if  not  exhilaration.  But  every  spoken  or  acted  indecency  is  uni- 
versally condemned  for  several  reasons :  first,  because  it  is  grossly 
irreverent  toward  organs  and  functions  that  are  essentially  sacred 
and  holy  as  is  perhaps  nothing  else;  and,  secondly,  because  it  is 
always  ignorant  and  such  information  as  it  conveys  is  usually  mor- 
bidly perverted.  Science  and  the  social  consciousness  are  now  break- 
ing down  many  of  these  reserves  in  the  interests  of  racial  welfare 
and  a  new  moral  pedagogic  attitude  is  now  being  taken  toward  sex. 
Once,  tuberculosis  was  thought  to  be  best  treated  by  inclosed  rooms, 
with  all  draughts  excluded,  as  if  pure,  fresh  air  was  fraught  with 
special  dangers,  whereas  now  the  out-of-doors  with  exposure  to 
every  wind  and  weather,  day  and  night,  summer  and  winter,  works 
wondrous  cures.  Perhaps  open  ventilation  and  a  less  stuffy  atmos- 
phere may  be  a  therapy  that  will  prove  no  less  beneficent  for  the 
great  and  growing  sex  evils  of  our  day. 

That  they  are  both  great  and  growing,  few  will  deny,  as  even 
the  meager  statistics  available  indicate.  If  the  darkness  were  sud- 
denly lifted  in  this  field  in  any  community,  there  would  no  doubt  be 
consternation  at  the  bare  facts  which  hypocrisy  conceals.  But  we 
are  not  pleading  for  exposure  of  those  who  lead  double  lives,  for  no 
more  good  could  come  of  that  than  from  the  revelations  of  divorce 
and  criminal  courts  served  up  by  the  "  yellow  "  papers.  But  there 
is  now  a  wealth  of  vital,  practical  knowledge  largely  new — patho- 
logical, physiological,  psychological,  and  sociological — that  should  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  darkness  of  ignorance  and  widespread  and 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  495 

devastating  errors  of  living.  Even  the  slogan  that  whatever  is 
biologically  right  is  morally  right,  dangerous  as  it  is.  would  on  the 
whole  doubtless  level  up,  far  more  than  it  would  level  down,  society 
as  a  whole. 

The  story  of  the  psychological  causes  of  the  extension  of  the  area 
of  interest  from  sexual  to  other  parts  of  the  body  so  far  as  motives 
of  modesty  were  involved  is  relatively  plain  and  simple.  Sex  in- 
terest would  now  be  less  direct,  more  circuited  from  primary  to 
secondary  sex  qualities.  As  breast,  thighs,  hips,  abdomen,  etc.,  came 
to  be  regarded  as  sexual  zones,  accessible  to  sight  and  possibly  to 
touch,  they  would  at  first  be  exhibited  with  pride  as  erotic  charms. 
How  strongly  this  persists  we  observe  on  every  popular  beach  in 
bathing  hours,  in  the  passion  of  youth  to  parade  their  form  and  to 
set  it  off  by  every  device  of  male  coquetry!  Concealment  itself  is  a 
positive  excitant  to  the  imagination.  Here,  too,  youth  and  maidens 
are  alert  in  preparing  for  and  in  undergoing  each  other's  critical 
examination  and  in  making  new  experiments  of  this  kind. 

This  newborn  sense  of  shame  and  modesty  that  nature  spreads 
out  over  everything  sexual  at  the  dawn  of  puberty  and  of  its  sex 
eclaircissement  in  boys,  but  far  more  in  girls,  is  of  the  highest  pro- 
tective value.  It  is  an  instinct  which  no  amount  of  teaching  or  reflec- 
tion can  supply  the  place  of.  It  must  be  trusted  for  all  it  is  worth, 
for  here  to  deliberate  is  too  often  to  be  lost,  so  much  wiser  and  surer 
is  intuition  than  reason.  Maidenly  modesty  is  a  kind  of  placenta 
in  which  virtue  grows  to  the  maturity  of  motherhood.  It  is  the  very 
opposite  of  prudery,  for  that  is  born  of  false  knowledge.  It  has 
always  been  one  of  the  best  things  in  womanhood.  It  is  not  sullied 
by  but  carefully  and  completely  assimilates  all  knowledge  in  the 
environment  that  is  needful  for  life.  At  this  stage  instruction  should 
be  given  girls  if  possible  by  mothers,  else  by  older  women  friends  who 
are  dear  and  respected.  It  must  be  given  only  as  interest  is  ripe  and  at 
the  right  moments,  must  be  of  right  kinds  and  amounts.  For  this  sort 
of  information  is  utterly  unlike  that  of  the  school  curriculum  because 
information  thus  given  is  not  and  should  not  be  of  the  examinable 
kind,  but  this  knowledge  more  than  any  other  tends  to  sink  to  those 
subconscious  strata  of  the  soul  which  regulate  both  thought  and 
life.  Pubescent  girls  need  indirect  suggestive  methods  in  which 
facts  and  laws  are  as  it  were  so  casually  dropped  that  the  learner 
hardly  suspects  any  intention  to  instruct.  Thus  the  more  condensed 
this  information  is  the  deeper  and  quicker  it  is  absorbed  and  be- 
comes practical,  while  if  systematized  and  bepedagogued  and  ex- 
patiated on,  as  is  done  in  most  of  the  far  too  big  books  for  the  ymmg. 
to  read  which  hold  the  attention  far  too  long  upon  these  subjects, 
then  the  knowledge  lingers  in  the  mnemonic  merely  cognitive  serv- 
ice of  consciousness  and  is  not  at  once  transmuted  into  will  power. 
Sex  knowledge  at  this  stage  must  not  be  a  mere  object  but  must  be- 
come an  organ  of  sense  apperception,  while  in  the  latter  teens  teach- 
ing can  be  more  methodic  and  systematic. 


496  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

Mobius  and  Bosnia,  reviving  the  idea  of  Burdock,  argue 
for  wedlock  based  on  passion  rather  than  reason.  These 
writers  urge  that  all  should  marry  in  their  bloom  and  in  the 
fullness  of  youth;  that  delay  which  brings  in  prudential  and 
social  considerations  is  injurious  to  vitality  of  a  stock  as  shown 
in  posterity.  The  nisus  generativus  is,  if  illuminated  and 
guided  by  a  little  physiological  knowledge,  with  sufficient  but 
not  too  prolonged  inhibition,  the  best  of  all  guides.  Overripe 
parents  are  not  the  best.  Beauty  should  be  considered  as  the 
very  best  expression  of  health.  Its  instant  appreciation  in  the 
other  sex  is  a  kind  of  instinctive  or  intuitive  diagnosis  that  is 
generally  sure  and  true.  There  is  no  such  delight  as  that  in 
beauty.  On  the  other  hand  all  that  is  ugly  and  hateful  is  usu- 
ally more  or  less  morbid.  If  man  were  not  an  animal  smitten 
with  the  delusions  of  greatness  he  would  be  less  prone  to  error 
here.  Nervous  men  and  women  often  attract  each  other,  but 
such  unions,  while  they  may  be  happy,  reenforce  nervousness 
in  the  offspring,  which  is  the  only  true  criterion.  The  vitality 
of  those  not  yet  born  should  be  ever  in  mind.  Ziehen  insists, 
against  many  authorities  who  hold  the  opposite  view,  that 
nearly  every  kind  of  healthful  excitation  aids  to  healthful 
control  during  the  probationary  years.  Idealism  and  enthu- 
siasm repress  and  take  the  vigor  from  evil  thoughts.  If  this 
is  true  then  emotionalism  is  a  kind  of  safeguard. 

Many  criteria  have  been  suggested  for  distinguishing 
maidenhood  from  the  state  following  its  loss,  such  as  the  en- 
largement of  the  thyroid  glands  and  the  circumference  of  the 
neck,  the  deepening  and  perhaps  roughening  of  the  voice,  the 
state  of  the  hair,  greater  sensitiveness  of  the  vascular  system 
as  shown,  e.  g.,  in  blushing  and  flushing  and  many  others,  but 
none,  not  even  the  most  popular  sign  of  local  rupture  which 
may  be  otherwise  caused,  is  infallible.  This  should  be  known, 
for  many  husbands  from  implicit  reliance  upon  certain  of  these 
popular  tokens  have  been  unjust  and  caused  needless  suffering.^ 
Among  primitive  people,  pregnancy  generally  coincides  with 
wedlock  and  with  the  loss  of  virginity.  The  average  interval 
between  the  two  events  increases  with  civilization.     During 


^  The  old  views  upon  this  subject  are  copiously  summarized  by  Schurig,  Syllep- 
silogia,  1731,  and  Parthenologia,  1729. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  497 

this  period,  some  writers  think  there  is  usually  a  gradual,  if 
slight  decline  of  procreative  energy  so  that  ciiildren  born  a 
year  or  more  after  wedlock  are  more  liable  to  be  deficient  in 
vitality  or  vigor  of  the  developmental  nisus.  Some  hold  that 
this  is  not  an  invariable  rule,  but  that  in  certain  cases  more 
or  less  delay  may  be  favorable.  This  of  course  depends  on 
many  factors,  such  as  the  habits  of  the  father  before  and  the 
degree  of  temperance  after  wedlock,  I  can  find  no  authority 
upon  this  subject  who  approves  the  customs  of  the  honeymoon, 
for  the  advantages  of  rest  and  diversion  are  thought  to  be 
overbalanced  by  errors  in  diet,  excessive  venery  and  other 
irregularities.  Wedding  cakes,  drinks,  the  long  excitement 
and  fatigue  of  the  latest  stages  of  courtship  and  the  multifa- 
rious preparations  for  the  modern  wedding,  with  all  its  attend- 
ant nervous  strain,  are  prone  to  leave  the  system  too  exhausted 
to  perform  well  the  supreme  function  of  transmitting  life. 
Under  these  conditions  the  curve  of  procreative  efficiency  may 
rise  for  days,  weeks,  and  possibly  for  months  after  a  fashion- 
able marriage  till  it  declines  again  under  the  stress  of  exhaus- 
tion. Those  who  discuss  these  questions  from  the  new  stand- 
point of  what  is  now  called  ethical  or  biological  marriage  so 
far  take  very  divergent  and  often  extreme  views  upon  all  these 
points.  It  is  certain  that  for  some,  under  exceptional  con- 
ditions of  health  and  environment,  long  delays  before  concep- 
tion are  prejudicial  to  the  highest  welfare  of  posterity  and 
that  it  is  here  that  the  interests  of  the  unborn  and  the  instincts 
of  self-indulgence  on  the  part  of  the  parents  are  at  their  acute 
stage  of  conflict  and  every  maxim  of  moderation  is  most 
needed.  For  a  time  the  gratification  heightens  desire  and 
those  who  make  the  marriage  license  a  warrant  for  orgastic 
excess  become  for  a  season  more  or  less  intoxicated  by 
pleasure,  and  only  after  a  period  of  abandon  thp.t  sometimes 
passes  over  into  symptoms  of  more  or  less  permanent  aversion 
is  it  learned  that  a  Nemesis,  that  in  morbid  natures  may  pass 
into  postcoital  rage  and  violence  and  in  normal  natures  may 
lay  the  foundations  for  conjugal  discord,  has  erected  adaman- 
tine limitations  to  even  love.  Sometimes  women  welcome 
this  postponement  of  concei)tion  in  the  Iwlief  that  thus  the  ties 
of  affection  are  strengthened,  feeling  that  their  husbands  and 
not  the  interests  of  future  generations  have  the  first  claim 
83 


49^  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

upon  them  and  thus  without  reahzing  it,  slowly  become  the 
mistresses  of  their  spouses  rather  than  wives.  Some  are  en- 
couraged to  do  this  by  him  and  by  the  mistaken  advice  of 
friends.  Universally  known  methods  of  prevention  make 
this  now  possible.  Others  deem  it  better  for  the  race  to  wait 
until  the  period  of  initial  stress  and  strain  has  passed. 

Menstruation  is  incipient  pregnancy  and  the  close  of  each 
period  suggests  abortion  at  a  very  early  stage.  If  the  ovum 
is  fertilized  these  symptoms  pass  over  into  those  of  gravidity 
by  almost  imperceptible  gradations.  The  physical  and  espe- 
cially the  psychic  processes  which  attend  the  maturation  and 
descent  of  the  egg  about  which  the  phenomena  of  the  monthly 
flux  center  and  which  cease  with  the  petite  abortion  if  ex- 
clusion continue  and  are  enhanced  if  it  is  impregnated.  From 
the  moment  this  occurs  the  maternal  body  and  soul  are  pro- 
gressively subordinated  to  the  interests  of  the  embryo,  which 
causes  profound  modification  of  every  tissue  and  physio- 
logical process.  Not  only  the  mother's  appetite,  digestion, 
circulation,  complexion,  and  form  are  influenced,  but  the  hair 
is  in  better  condition,  the  eyes  more  expressive,  the  tempera- 
ture increases,  pigmentation  is  augmented  and  even  the  finger 
nails,  as  Esreicht  has  shown,  become  thinner  and  more  deli- 
cate. The  posture  is  more  erect  as  the  back  arches  in  and  the 
abdomen  protrudes  and  this  erectness  is  the  attitude  of  the 
pride  one  should  feel  when  "  elevated  above  the  level  of  or- 
dinary humanity  to  become  the  casket  of  an  inestimable 
jewel."  The  new  pelvic  focus  of  vascular  activity  affects  the 
heart,  or  at  least  its  right  ventricle  which  may  enlarge  some- 
what to  perform  the  new  work  put  upon  it.  The  quantity  of 
blood  is  augmented  and  if  the  red  decline,  white  corpuscles 
are  increased.  The  glandular  activity  is  modified  and  sali- 
vation is  often  stimulated.  There  is  more  vascular  excitabil- 
ity as  is  shown  in  blushing  and  flushing,  and  this  there  is  now 
much  reason  to  think  is  due  to  the  vasoconstricting  action  of 
the  suprarenal  bodies  alternating  with  the  dilating  action  of 
the  thyroid  secretions.  The  latter  agency  predominates.  The 
child  is  formed  not  only  out  of  its  mother's  food,  but  out  of 
her  very  flesh,  so  predominant  now  are  the  interests  of  the 
species  as  represented  by  the  embryo  over  those  of  the  individ- 
ual mother.    The  nervous  system,  too,  is  more  tense,  active  and 


THE    PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  499 

excitable.  The  knee-jerk  increases  as  pregnancy  advances, 
especially  in  its  later  stages,  as  do  the  other  deep  tendon  re- 
flexes, both  most  with  the  first  pregnancy,  while  electrical 
excitability  and  all  the  superficial  reflexes  save  the  abdominal 
are  reduced.  Nausea  is  more  common  and  this  is  thought  to 
be  partly  physiological  and  regulative  of  equilibrium.  Vomit- 
ing is  a  convulsive  and  nerve  controlled  act  and  may  lead  on 
to  eclampsia,  convulsibility  being  in  general  more  common  in 
women  than  in  men.  Some  think  vomiting  may  have  differ- 
ent causes — neurotic  or  hysterical,  reflex  or  toxaemic.  It  is 
rare  among  savages  and  unknown  in  the  higher  animals  and 
is  said  to  be  absent  in  those  who  menstruate  without  pain. 
This  would  suggest  that  it  is  pathological.  From  a  study  of 
300  cases,  Giles  found  it  most  common  in  the  second  month, 
that  only  one  third  were  free  throughout  and  that  there  was 
less  sickness  in  the  third  than  in  any  other  pregnancy,  the  age 
of  twenty-five  being  most  immune.  The  tensions  set  up  may 
overflow  into  the  muscular  system  causing  chorea.  The 
uterus  of  course  becomes  the  seat  of  active  irritation  and  con- 
tracts rhythmically.  This  perhaps  serves  to  impel  the  blood 
through  the  large  venous  sinuses  where  stagnant  pools  jof 
blood  tend  to  accumulate.  This  action,  varicose  veins,  stimu- 
lation of  the  breasts  or  vagina  and  nausea  seem  to  be  all  more 
or  less  correlated  if  not  causally  connected,  but  in  this  direc- 
tion the  limitations  of  our  knowledge  are  almost  oppressive. 
One  characteristic  trait  of  pregnancy  which  develops 
upon  the  above  basis  is  the  piece  longings  or  even  obsessions 
of  appetite.  Some  women  are  impelled  to  eat  earth,  sand, 
filth,  ashes,  pepper,  salt,  mushrooms,  lemons,  insects,  raw 
meat,  roots,  and  the  most  offensive  substances.  They  may 
wish  to  smoke,  drink,  bite  into  human  or  animal  flesh,  swal- 
low pebbles  or  coin.  The  acute  antipathies  a^e  also  pro- 
nounced, if  somewhat  less  so,  and  they  include  nearly  every 
kind  of  food  and  drink  which  before  had  been  preferred. 
Various  theories  have  been  held  concerning  these  caprices, 
e.  g.,  whims  of  appetite  frequently  express  what  the  growing 
body  of  the  child  and  the  mother's  system  really  need  to  per- 
form well  the  work  of  gestation.  Another  view  is  that  the 
longings  are  in  order  to  overcome  nausea,  but  it  is  now  known 
that  the  number  of  women  with  and  without  nausea  who  have 


5cx>  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

marked  longings  is  about  the  same.  Again,  the  popular 
opinion  that  such  piccB  are  natural  suggests  them  to  women 
and  they  are  indulged  because  it  is  thought  that  to  do  so  is 
beneficial  to  the  child,  although  in  fact  it  is  of  indififerent  value. 
This  is  doubtless  very  common.  Upon  some  women  who  lack 
them,  they  are  sometimes  almost  imposed  by  the  solicitude  of 
friends  who  think  them  necessary  to  normality.  Occasionally 
desires  for  special  edibles  are  intense  and  persistent  and  some- 
times they  rather  suddenly  turn  into  aversion.  Ellis  ^  states 
that  women  who  have  borne  most  children  are  least  likely  to 
have  these  desires,  and  they  are  most  common  in  first  pregnan- 
cies from  which  he  infers  that  they  are  chiefly  products  of 
suggestion.  Such  whimsies  of  appetite  were  found  in  antiquity 
and  exist  in  the  Orient  and  among  most  savages  and  have  thus 
been  thought  to  be  universal  and  normal.  They  are  perhaps 
most  common  among  women  of  the  lower  or  middle  classes 
leading  simple  and  perhaps  natural  lives.  Such  longings,  ac- 
cording to  Giles,  are  chiefly  for  fruits,  the  apple,  which  is  very 
prominent  in  mythology  as  a  sacred  or  magical  food,  many  a 
legend  connecting  it  as  well  as  pears,  citrons,  lemons,  oranges, 
and  other  aciduous  fruit  with  feminine  taste,  leading  all  the 
others.  Cravings,  as  we  have  seen,  are  most  common  with 
young  women  and  are,  or  may  be,  a  revival  or  continuation  of 
those  of  childhood.  Children  are  subject  to  fits  of  greediness 
for  delicacies  that  may  become  almost  morbid.  Girls  especially 
crave  sweets  and  fruits,  particularly  at  the  dawn  of  adoles- 
cence. Bell  2  thought  that  the  food  proclivities  of  children 
repeat  the  history  of  the  race,  and  noted  that  in  midadoles- 
cence  there  was  a  revived  lust  for  fruit.  This  is  doled  out 
in  such  small  quantities  that  the  desire  for  it  may  be  left  so 
strong  as  to  prompt  theft  to  get  it.  Some  think  these  appe- 
tites for  fruit  are  themselves  seasonal  quite  independently 
of  the  fact  that  the  ripening  and  supply  of  it  is  so.  In  some 
places  and  periods,  these  desires  of  pregnant  women  are  re- 
garded as  almost  hallowed  and  they  are  allowed  in  this  condi- 
tion to  take  fruit  freely  where  it  is  otherwise  forbidden.     Even 

*  Studies  in  the  Psychology   of   Sex ;  erotic  symbolism.   Davis,  Philadelphia, 
1906,  214  p. 

*  An  Introductory  Study  of  the  Psychology  of  Foods.     Pedagogical  Seminary, 
March,  1904,  vol.  11,  pp.  51-90. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  501 

law  has  often  admitted  the  partial  irresponsibility  of  women 
acting  under  this  impulse. 

The  more  probable  explanation  of  this  very  interesting 
phenomenon  seems  to  be  that  realizing  their  condition  and  feel- 
ing that  they  must  now  eat  and  drink  for  two,  women  natur- 
ally pay  more  than  usual  attention  to  their  diet.  Feeling 
themselves  somewhat  privileged  and  possibly  with  somewhat 
lessened  cares,  they  become  more  conscious  of  their  likes  and 
dislikes  and  the  gradation  of  their  tastes  and  aversions  is  laid 
off  on  a  more  extended  scale.  They  become  somewhat  more 
careful  in  preparing  their  food  and  take  more  pains,  while 
their  appetite  is  at  the  same  time  becoming  greater.  Latent 
and  past  impressions  of  what  they  have  enjoyed  or  what  has 
been  good  or  bad  for  them  in  the  past  crop  out  and  their 
dietetic  consciousness  is  intensified.  All  this  tendency  is  reen- 
forced  by  the  tradition  that  these  preferences  are  significant 
for  the  child  and  they  feel  not  only  justified  in  indulging 
them,  but  study  them  and  thus  in  self-indulgent  or  neurotic 
mothers  the  way  to  extreme  and  fantastic  freakiness  is  opened. 
The  new  nutritive  demands,  moreover,  often  impel  to  a 
change  of  the  quality  as  well  as  of  the  quantity  of  ingesta,  and 
so  hunger  gropes  and  circumvallates  in  all  directions  to  find 
its  way  to  the  new  metabolic  equilibrium  which  the  9^'stem 
requires.  Among  the  memories  of  former  preferences  those 
of  puberty,  which  was  the  last  era  of  reconstruction  of  nutritive 
habits,  are  revived  easiest  and  first  as  a  result  of  these  grop- 
ings.  Such  recrudescences  of  earlier  individual  experiences  are 
thus  naturally  and  necessarily  in  the  same  direction  as  that  of 
the  phylum  and  thus  the  appetitive  tendency  reverts  to  fruits, 
raw  meats,  and  other  foods  of  the  past  of  the  race.  It  is  thus 
that  the  tastes  of  pregnancy  so  often  suggest  the  eating  habits 
of  an  earlier  stage  of  evolution,  because  the  embryo  which  is 
now  in  this  era  of  recapitulation  calls  upon  the  mother's  body  to 
supply  what  in  some  remote  age  our  progenitors  gathered 
from  trees,  dug  from  earth,  or  caught  and  killed  for  them- 
selves perhaps  even  Ix'fore  the  age  of  the  control  of  fire  and 
cooking.  If  this  explanation  is  correct,  the  call  of  the  unborn 
child  in  the  mother's  body  for  the  ancient  pabuhnn  of  the 
stirp  which  was  once  supplied  by  its  own  vohintary  efforts  has 
now   lapsed  to   an   organic  demand    laid   upon    the   nvjther's 


S02  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

blood  and  body,  and  becomes  a  component  element  of  her  own 
body.  Hence,  the  resultant  is  the  compounded  needs  of  parents 
and  child  which  results  in  the  compromise  that  harks  back  to- 
ward the  earliest  conditions  represented  by  any  of  the  factors 
with  a  strength  and  to  a  degree  proportionate  to  the  relative 
intensity  of  the  two  instincts :  that  of  the  mother  for  her  own 
needs  and  that  of  the  child  for  its.  That  these  whims  are 
often  most  developed  in  the  earlier  stages  of  pregnancy  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  first  demands  of  the  embryo,  though 
weaker,  represent  an  earlier  stage  of  the  food  history  of  the 
race  than  that  represented  by  its  more  mature  period  of  de- 
velopment due  to  the  fact  that  the  first  unsettlement  of  the 
previous  maternal  dietary  resulted  in  a  greater  range  and 
plasticity  of  appetite  and  digestion,  the  initial  arrest  and  re- 
version of  which  is  more  conspicuous  to  the  mother  and  more 
observable  to  others. 

Birth-  or  mother-marks  {Versehen,  envie)  are  popularly 
believed  to  be  impressed  on  the  child's  body  or  psyche  by 
powerful  influences  made  upon  the  mother  during  pregnancy. 
A  child  is  born  with  deformed  feet  because  the  mother  saw  a 
rabbit  killed  by  a  cat  which  ate  off  its  paws.  A  naevus  on  a 
babe's  arm  was  thought  due  to  the  fact  that  the  mother  tended 
the  father  who  had  been  severely  cut  on  the  same  arm  and  in 
the  same  place.  A  fleshy  substance  growing  from  the  spine 
of  a  child  was  ascribed  to  the  fact  that  the  mother  when 
milking  had  clung  to  a  cow's  teat  which  this  excrescence  re- 
sembled when  kicked  over.  A  bull  frightened  a  mother  whose 
stillborn  child  had  a  head  "  exactly  like  a  cow."  The  child  of 
a  mother  who  had  been  frightened  by  a  dog  was  marked  by 
a  large  hair  mole.  A  child  born  with  flexed  legs  owed  them 
to  the  fact  that  the  mother  had  seen  a  beggar  similarly  de- 
formed. Another  infant  had  a  patch  of  soft  hair  on  his  cheek 
because  the  mother  had  been  struck  there  by  a  young  hare  the 
father  had  tossed  from  the  hay  to  her.  A  man  bled  a  sow  by 
cutting  a  patch  out  of  its  ear.  The  wife  saw  the  act  and  bore 
a  child  whose  ear  had  no  helix.  After  reading  a  story  in 
which  one  of  the  characters  had  six  fingers  the  mother  bore 
a  child  with  an  extra  digit.  The  belief  in  influences  repre- 
sented by  these  cases  is  as  old  as  the  Bible  story  of  Jacob  and 
the  ewes,  and  Ellis  states  that  this  view  was  never  seriously 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  503 

attacked  till  the  eighteenth  century,  but  now  for  a  century  and 
a  half  it  has  been  denied  and  affirmed  by  physicians  and  is  still 
an  open  and  much-discussed  question.  It  is  hard  to  conceive 
how  such  influences  can  operate  since  there  is  no  direct  nervous 
connection  between  the  mother  and  the  child  and  few  cases 
have  been  critically  studied.  In  certain  instances  the  cause 
of  the  defect  occurred  after  the  foetus  was  so  well  developed 
that  if  there  was  any  influence  it  must  have  worked  retrogres- 
sively  and  then  reconstructively.  Moreover,  such  cases  are 
rare,  Bischoff  having  found  not  one  in  a  record  of  11,000 
births  recorded  promiscuously.  Still,  not  a  few  eminent  gyne- 
cologists credit  such  influences  and  think  that  coincidences 
cannot  explain  them.  Perhaps  most  would  not  deny  that  pro- 
longed and  strong  mental  impressions  may  cause  vascular  and 
nutritive  disturbances,  irregularities,  and  even  idiocy  and 
arrest.  The  effects  of  mental  and  emotional  disposition  have 
been  less  discussed.  Out  of  ninety  cases,  Dabney  found 
twenty-one  definitely  ascribed  to  shocks  occurring  during  the 
first  three  months  of  pregnancy,  and  thought  that  in  these  cases 
the  cause  occurred  before  the  development  of  the  part  affected 
had  been  decided.  Some  have  invoked  modifications  of  the 
blood  to  explain  it.  Fere  thinks  strong  emotions  cause  local 
diversities  of  pressure  of  the  womb  upon  the  embryo  and  so 
may  at  least  cause  foetal  movements  and  that  yet  vaguer  de- 
velopmental neuroses  and  disharmonies  may  result  in  mal- 
formations. Experiment  shows  that  slight  causes  such  as 
odors  may  profoundly  modify  the  embryonic  growth  of  chicks. 
The  relations  between  mother  and  child  in  titcro  are  of  course 
extremely  intimate  and  are  not  unlike  those  between  the  chief 
subordinate  parts  of  the  nervous  system  in  the  same  child 
when  they  are  growing  from  independent  centers  and  have 
not  yet  joined,  or  the  connections  may  be  analogous  to  that  l^e- 
tween  the  gland  nerves  and  the  brain.  Parts  of  the  latter  de- 
velop first  in  relative  independence  of  other  parts.  Marshall 
suggests  that  thus  the  embryonic  processes  form  a  subordinate 
and  jKirasitic  part  of  the  consciousness  of  the  mother  and 
speakfi  of  two  brains  that  may  be  attuned  to  coaction,  while 
emanation,  itiflucncc.  and  even  telepathy  have  l)ccn  suggested. 
Pregnancy  induces  a  unique  psychic  .state,  in  some  causing 
tension,  in  others  relaxation.     There  may  be  depression  or 


504  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

exaltation,  hysteria  or  apathy,  increased  or  diminished  sex 
feehng,  heightened  or  dulled  intellectual  states  and  processes. 
It  is  thus  a  paradoxical  condition.  Till  very  recently  no  preg- 
nant woman  ever  sought  to  express  her  psychic  states,  but 
that  these  should  be  known  and  controlled  and  that  they  have 
an  important  influence  upon  puericulture  is  certain.  Even 
Ellis  says  that  we  can  here  do  little  but  wonder  and  adore  as 
in  the  presence  of  a  divine  creative  act. 

Consanguinity  of  parents  per  se  perhaps  exercises  no  un- 
favorable influence  upon  children.  So  at  least  Feer  ^  argues. 
From  a  summary  of  the  copious  literature  and  statistics  upon 
the  subject,  it  appears  that  only  in  retinitis  pigmentosa  and 
congenital  deaf-muteness,  and  possibly  in  a  few  other  diseases 
can  a  predisposing  cause  be  traced  to  the  blood  relationship 
of  parents.  Of  course  parents  who  are  relatives  are  more 
prone  to  the  same  diseases  or  more  likely  to  be  exposed  to 
untoward  external  influences  and  it  is  to  these  that  the  dele- 
terious effects  of  the  marriage  of  relatives  is  to  be  chiefly 
ascribed.  There  are  many  cases  of  children  of  consanguineous 
parents  who  are  normal  in  all  respects  through  life.  Enthu- 
siasts for  race  improvement  have  often  urged  legislation  re- 
specting the  degrees  of  relationship  within  which  marriage 
should  be  allowed,  but  as  the  evils  of  inbreeding  are  insignifi- 
cant in  comparison  to  those  arising  from  the  intermarriage 
of  consumptives,  syphilitics,  deaf-mutes,  insane  and  alcoholic, 
restriction  laws,  if  any  are  to  be  enacted,  should  begin  with 
these  latter.  Many  authors  urge  that  human  inbreeding  tends 
to  reenforcement  and  potentialization  of  heredity  in  certain 
directions  and  to  diminish  not  only  variation  but  energy  in 
others  so  that  new  blood  is  needed  for  new  combinations.  If, 
and  so  far  as  these  accented  qualities  are  good,  wholesome 
variation  may  result.  The  problem  is  best  studied  among 
animals  and  plants  which  breed  more  rapidly  than  man  and 
here  full-blooded  stirps  often  thrive  for  many  generations 
with  not  only  inbreeding,  but  even  with  incest.  Thus  more  or 
less  stable  race  constants  may  arise  and  fertility  as  well  as 
hereditary  effectiveness  may  be  augmented.     But  beyond  a 


*  Der  Einfluss  der  Blutsverwandtschaft  der  Eltem  auf  die  Kinder.    Karger  Ber- 
lin, 1907,  32  p.. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  505 

certain  very  variable  point,  degenerative  processes  develop  yet 
more  rapidly  and  decadence  results  so  that  crossing  brings 
wholesome  reconstruction.  Both  primitive  and  transition 
races  seem  most  immune,  while  with  those  that  are  civilized 
bad  results  appear  sooner.  Reibmayr  ^  urges  that  human  cul- 
ture has  been  very  dependent  upon,  limiting  both  by  culture 
and  by  law  the  racial  range  of  intermarriage,  and  if  the  latter 
be  freely  contracted  with  members  of  lower  stirps  progress  is 
arrested.  Not  only  caste  but  language  and  religion  have  set  up 
wholesome  barriers.  Bees  and  ants  owe  their  high  instincts  to 
inbreedings.  Yet,  if  restrictions  are  narrow  or  too  long  con- 
tinued, rigidity  and  stagnation  result.  Then  crossing  with 
vigorous  but  less  developed  stock  brings  new  life.  Once 
hereditary  disease  was  far  less  than  now  so  that  the  rhythm  of 
the  three  stages,  inbreeding  and  progress,  stagnation,  mixture, 
and  renewed  progress  followed  each  other  with  less  rapidity 
than  now.  Among  the  ancient  Persians,  Egyptians,  and  the 
Incas  of  Peru,  brother  and  sister,  father  and  daughter,  mother 
and  son,  married  with  impunity  and  the  last  of  the  Incas  is 
said  to  have  been  the  fifteenth  generation  of  marriage  with  a 
sister  which  was  proscribed.  Lorenz  is  inclined  to  think  that 
this  worked  very  favorably  for  ennobling  the  race  under  the 
conditions  that  existed  then  and  there.  For  determining  the 
optimal  degree  of  relationship  that  is  favorable,  of  course  we 
have  no  norm.  In  many  statistical  studies  of  important  data 
even  the  degrees  of  relationship  are  often  omitted.  One  of  the 
best  of  these  by  George  Darwin  -  in  which  the  results  of  the 
marriage  of  sisters'  children  appears,  shows  but  surprisingly 
little  deleterious  effect.  The  best  data  are  from  the  studies  of 
special  diseases,  but  often  here  methods  are  still  unsatisfactory, 
and  consumption,  e.  g.,  is  so  very  prevalent  everywhere  that 
it  is  difficult  to  obtain  a  reliable  basis  of  comparison.  The 
best  of  all  recent  studies  are  those  by  Mayet  ^  who  compiled 
his  data  from  150,000  inmates  of  Prussian  institutions  and 
who  showed  that  for  even  such  diseases  as  simple  insanity. 
paralysis,   and    epilepsy,   the   effect   of    the   consanguinity   of 


'  Inzucht  und  ViTmis*  hung  \n-'\m  Mi-nscht-n.    Leipzig  uml  Wicn,  iH(j7,  2f>8  p. 
'  Die  Ehcn  z\vis<  hen  (lesclnvisterkindern  und  ihn-  Folgcn.    Leipzig,  1S76. 
'  Jahrb.  d.  internal.  Vereinigun^  filr  vcrgleich.  Rcthtswissenst haft  und   Volks- 
wirtschaflslehre,  1903,  pp.  193-210. 


5o6  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

parents  was  extremely  slight,  if  indeed  it  was  a  factor  at  all, 
although  for  imbecility  and  idiocy  a  slightly  better  case  was 
made  out.  Even  though  we  may  doubt  the  full  efifects  of  con- 
sanguinity per  se,  such  marriages  are  in  fact  usually  unfavor- 
able and  may  be  highly  so  in  civilized  lands  to-day  because 
they  involve  a  greater  liability  to  similar  deleterious  circum- 
stances, while  mixtures  tend  to  eliminate  hereditary  effects, 
for  we  cannot  escape  the  fact  that  in  a  general  way  destiny  is 
ancestry. 

The  genetic  study  of  childhood  begins  with  that  of  love, 
the  spring  of  life;  not  the  prenuptial  love  of  courtship,  but 
where  all  novels  and  romances  that  deal  with  it  end,  with 
wedlock.  The  one  field  is  rankly  dight  with  about  every  fair 
flower  and  every  noxious  weed  that  the  rich  soil  of  fiction 
and  fancy  can  bring  forth.  The  other,  of  vastly  more  import 
for  the  future  of  the  race,  is  less  accessible,  so  less  often  ex- 
ploited. Its  joys  should  be  and  doubtless  are  on  the  whole  far 
deeper  and  more  lasting  than  those  known  to  wooers  or 
wooed.  It  is  its  dissonances  rather  than  its  harmonies  that  are 
most  audible  outside  the  reserve  that  veils  the  inmost  circle 
of  domestic  life.  Although  medical  records  and  those  of 
divorce  courts  show  the  indescribable  physical  and  mental  tor- 
ture which  sometimes  exists  in  marriage,  yet  despite  the  sus- 
picions of  gossips,  the  popular  gibes  of  the  stage  and  press, 
the  coarseness  of  cynics,  the  black  pessimism  of  roues  and 
the  often  radical  reconstructions  of  it  proposed  by  fanatics, 
the  wedded  state  with  all  its  failures  is,  we  must  believe,  on 
the  whole  and  for  the  great  majority  the  chief  condition  of 
human  happiness. 

While  comprehensive  facts  and  statistics  on  matters  so 
sacredly  secret  are  inaccessible  so  that  we  lack  data  for  all 
qualitative  scientific  statements,  it  seems  probable  that  the  ma- 
jority of  husbands  and  wives  do  not  yet  follow  one  of  the  great 
laws  of  nature  that  even  the  commonest  observation  of  animal 
life  should  teach,  viz.,  that  the  female  should  determine  the 
times  and  conditions  of  her  fecundation.  In  all  stages  of 
life,  save  the  human,  the  female  makes  this  great  decision  and 
everything  we  know  strongly  indicates  that  it  would  be  im- 
mensely for  the  good  of  posterity  if  this  were  the  case  with 
men.     Motherhood  should  be  craved,  and  if  it  is  reluctant  or 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  5°? 

coerced  is  sure  to  be  below  its  maximal  efficiency.  The  deep- 
est, oldest,  and  strongest  inclination  of  the  wife  is  to  accept 
her  husband  at  the  proper  time  and  for  the  proper  purpose. 
Of  the  former  she  is  the  best  judge.  If  she  permits  herself  to 
become  fertile  against  these  instincts,  even  because  she  would 
not  disappoint,  her  motherhood  cannot  be  ideal,  nor  can  his 
fatherhood.  This  is  the  supreme  natural  right  of  woman  and 
the  entire  movement  of  the  last  few  decades  for  her  emancipa- 
tion will  be  more  or  less  abortive  if  it  fails  to  attain  this,  its 
chief  goal.  The  good  husband  can  and  should  do  much  to 
control  the  desire  of  his  partner,  but  the  final  verdict  should 
always  rest  with  her  and  she  remains  dethroned,  without  her 
crown,  an  exile  from  her  paradise,  until  it  does.  In  most  of 
the  recent  efforts  of  her  sex  for  larger  liberty,  more  power 
and  knowledge,  the  biological  psychologist  sees  only  a  struggle 
toward  this  end.  Though  she  may  not  recognize  or  under- 
stand it,  all  she  has  won  is  precious  chiefly  in  so  far  as  it  helps 
to  this  great  coigne  of  hereditary  vantage,  and  even  if  she  half 
unsex  herself  in  the  effort,  she  will  make  good  later  if  she 
succeeds  here.  Beneath  the  thinnest  surface,  normal  and  com- 
plete love  in  every  healthful  woman  is  essentially  hunger  for 
maternity.  Man  can  partly  transmute  this  into  lust  or  can 
more  easily  and  perhaps  does  more  often  intimidate  it  by  the 
very  vigor  of  his  passion  into  the  fear  that  to  bear  a  child 
migJTt  divert  his  interest  to  another  and  thus  the  woman's  self- 
sacrifice  and  pain  that  should  go  out  toward  her  child  is  lav- 
ished upon  her  husband.  This  is  one  of  the  tragedies  of  wed- 
lock. It  has  even  been  argued  that  if  the  cruel  choice  had  to 
be  made,  strange  women  and  dual  lives  on  the  part  of  the  men 
would,  from  the  biological  view  point  of  the  good  of  posterity 
alone  considered,  be  better  than  generations  conceived  on 
either  side  with  violence,  aversion,  or  by  accident.  But  I 
know  no  scales  to  decide  the  relative  weight  of  two  evils  both 
so  great. 

While  the  attitude  of  no  great  numbers  of  men  toward 
this  ideal  has  ever  yet  been  systematically  canvassed,  there 
is  abundant  reason  to  know  that  it  varies  greatly.  Hundreds 
of  communications  that  have  come  to  me  in  the  last  ten  years 
show  that  not  a  few  young  men  contemplating  wedlock  re- 
solve with  all  the  energy  of  soul  they  can  muster  upon  just 


5o8  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

this  course.  Reasons  for  everything  done  or  not  done,  while 
sincere,  are  more  often  fantastic  and  utterly  foreign  from  the 
real  motives  that  impel  conduct  in  the  field  of  sex  than  any- 
where else.  Some  fall  away  from  their  high  resolve  because 
many,  if  not  most,  wives  have  been  led  by  others  to  expect 
both  frequency  and  subjection  and  because  men  fear  that  they 
will  be  else  thought  deficient  or  subnormal  in  vitality,  and  so 
they  exhaust  themselves  and  set  a  pace  that  they  know  to  be 
ruinous  if  maintained,  but  which  they  also  feel  it  w^ould  be 
a  confession  to  greatly  reduce.  This  initial  ignorance  and 
misunderstanding  of  each  other's  nature  and  real  interests  and 
even  desires  is  now  as  always  the  serpent  that  enters  man's 
Eden.  In  other  cases  love  itself  decrees  that  the  will  of  the 
partner  with  the  greatest  desire  shall  rule,  and  that  of  the 
other  bend  to  it,  so  the  way  to  Avernus  is  entered  upon,  when, 
if  the  weaker  led  there  would  be  hope.  It  is  a  physiological 
law,  too,  that  every  excess  brings  reaction,  be  it  a  new 
sense  of  general  insufticiency  for  the  tasks  of  life  or  censor- 
iousness  for  the  mate,  whether  passive  or  dominant  and  some- 
times of  violent  and  tragic  vengeance,  as  in  postcoital  torture, 
mutilations,  and  murder.  A  sense  of  weakness  of  either  mate 
inclines  to  the  postponement  of  childbearing  till  more  favor- 
able seasons  and  this  is  one  motive  of  the  use  of  preventative 
measures  now  so  well  known  in  nearly  all  families  in  civil- 
ized life.  The  rhythm  of  inclination  often  differs  between 
mated  couples  and  one  or  the  other  hesitates,  now  that  the 
matter  is  so  easily  controllable,  to  chance  the  hazard  of  the 
new  fortune  of  parenthood.  Very  prevalent  again  is  the  senti- 
ment that  at  least  a  season — the  wedding  tour,  the  first  year, 
etc. — may  very  properly  be  set  apart  for  enjoyment  before  the 
interests  of  posterity  are  considered.  If  the  abated  vitality  of 
children  born  short  because  engendered  by  parents  who  had 
selfishly  w^asted  the  bloom  of  their  powers  were  understood 
by  the  victims  of  these  ills,  few  commands  in  the  Decalogue 
would  be  so  violated  as  that  to  honor  parents,  for  they  would 
deserve  only  dishonor.  Conscious  overindulgence  is  often  pal- 
liated by  previous  resolutions  of  atonement  afterwards,  such 
as  by  some  exceptional  restraint,  by  unwonted  labor,  rest,  diet, 
vows  of  continence  for  a  definite  term,  etc.,  and  no  moment 
of  life  is  so  fecund  in  good  results  as  the  brief  interval  follow- 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  509 

ing  those  acts  of  the  union  known  at  the  time  to  be  excessive. 
Intemperance  in  the  exercise  of  this  function  is  probably  the 
chief  cause  of  the  abatement  of  love,  aversions,  and  separa- 
tions, and  is  the  parent  of  a  long  list  of  evils  now  growing 
rapidly  with  growing  knowledge  of  deaths,  diseases,  defects, 
insufficiencies,  and  perversions  of  children  who  have  been 
robbed  of  the  most  primal  of  all  human  rights,  that  of 
being  well  born.  These  are  but  few  of  the  ways  by  which 
the  most  laudable  purposes  of  those  about  to  wed  have  come 
to  naught. 

The  ideal  of  intercourse  for  offspring  only  which  is  also 
the  general  lesson  from  the  animal  world,  where  it  is  bound 
up  with  the  fact  that  the  female's  voluntas  or  noluntas  rules, 
is  cherished  by  many  types  of  Utopians  and  theoretical  moral- 
ists and  reformers,  not  counting  here  the  fanatics  of  sex  who 
call  its  function  a  necessary  evif  to  be  as  nearly  eliminated  by 
asceticism  as  is  possible  without  depopulation.  The  view  of 
most  who  advocate  this  principle  is  expressed  by  the  phrase 
"  the  more  restraint,  the  better  the  product"  That  for  some, 
perhaps  many,  and  especially  women,  the  rule  is  both  com- 
mendable and  attainable  there  can  be  no  doubt.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  are  many  who  urge  that  this  would  involve  too 
great  restraint,  would  abate  love  in  man,  since  one  of  the 
grounds  of  his  superiority  to  animals  in  nature  is  that  in  him 
love  has  acquired  rights  of  its  own  which  animals  know  not, 
that  it  would  involve  the  eradication  of  a  habit  very  slowly 
acquired  by  the  race  and  which  has  come  to  have  great  hered- 
itary momentum.  When  we  realize  the  impetuosity  of  this 
instinct,  especially  in  young  men,  it  seems  at  first  a  plausilile 
view  that  Nature  herself,  if  not  by  her  prime  intention  has  in 
her  present,  dc  facto,  or  if  one  pleases  to  call  it.  fallen  dispen- 
sation adopted  another  less  rigorous  norm.  Some  again  insist 
that  she  has  provided  for  this  by  lavishing  upon  man.  who 
excels  animals  in  so  many  other  respects,  superfluous  power  in 
this  also.  The  very  diploma  of  manhood  which  she  has  con- 
ferred upon  him  elevated  him  above  the  laws  of  lower  forms. 
Thus,  men  have  both  complimented  and  licensed  themselves 
and  granted  charters  and  concessions  to  their  own  inclinations, 
thus  keeping  themselves  in  countenance  and  living  as  others 
do.     This  view  is  held  by  many  candid  and  competent  stu- 


5IO  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

dents  in  this  field  whom  no  one  could  for  a  moment  suspect  of 
consciously  compromising  with  or  apologizing  for  selfish 
gratification  as  such,  although  so  profound  is  the  tendency  to 
justify  actual  widespread  practices  that  this  ideal  probably 
finds  more  whole-hearted  advocates  among  maturer  men  in 
whom  passion  has  begun  to  abate. 

We  believe,  however,  that  from  the  standpoint  of  the  high- 
est virtue,  which  is  indistinguishable  from  the  supreme  good 
of  the  race,  every  attempt  to  justify  indulgence  beyond  the 
actual  needs  of  the  continuance  and  increase  of  the  race  is 
merely  specious  and  wrong,  and  that  when  we  attain  true 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  such  views  will  be  cast  beside  the 
old  and  still  widely  prevalent  belief  of  adolescents  that  the 
vital  fluid  is  dangerous  if  allowed  to  accumulate.  In  fact, 
there  is  no  disease  known  to  medicine  and  no  defect  in  off- 
spring known  to  students  in  heredity  that  can  be  traced  to  re- 
straint or  continence,  but  those  now  known  to  be  due  to  excess 
are  of  great  and  growing  number.  There  is  in  fact  one  sure 
test,  somatic,  and  yet  as  suggestive  as  conscience,  and  that  is 
whether  or  not  there  is  great,  lasting,  and  subsequent  enhance- 
ment of  all  physical,  and  elevation  of  all  psychic,  powers  and 
satisfaction  and  not  an  inclination  of  desire,  a  new  poise,  a  re- 
enforcement  of  strength  and  of  euphoria,  new  ambitions,  a 
greater  power  of  accomplishment  and  endurance.  This  re- 
generation must  be  mutual  and  measured  summatively  by  tak- 
ing account  of  both  the  man  and  the  woman,  although  proba- 
bly the  latter  should  on  the  whole  count  for  more  than  the 
former,  for  her  soul  and  body  are  better  criteria  and  her  ex- 
perience is  more  massive  and  normative.  There  must  be  no 
alloy  of  scruple,  doubt,  or  anxiety,  however  caused,  but  only  a 
sense  of  overwhelming  good  that  has  come  to  stay  and  has 
given  life  a  new  direction.  The  psychic  factors  in  it  all  doubt- 
less greatly  outweigh  the  physical  if  this  too  intrusive  distinc- 
tion be  given  any  place  in  so  unitary  and  totalizing  an  expe- 
rience. Selfishness  must  be  entirely  and  supremely  transmuted 
into  love,  so  that  each  can  be  happy  only  in  and  with  the  other's 
joy,  and  no  vestige  of  duality  remains,  and  the  after-effects  of 
it  all  must  be  so  tranquilizing  and  perdurable  that  they  long 
seem  indefinitely  preferable  to  repetition,  and  thus  the  joys  of 
a  full  realization  must  and  will  for  a  long  period  eclipse  even. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  511 

those  of  anticipation  which  made  courtship  and  engagement 
so  full  of  charm. 

The  effects  of  the  first  conjugal  experience  upon  young 
women  though  perhaps  unduly  magnified  by  the  church,  which 
has  idealized  virginity,  are  psycho-physically  great.  So  much 
romance,  curiosity,  and  perhaps  desire,  not  unmixed  with  fear 
have  focused  in  advance  upon  it  that  there  is  naturally  a  unique 
sense  of  realization  and  of  initiation  into  complete  woman- 
hood. One  chapter  of  the  book  of  life  is  closed  and  another 
begun;  a  mystery  is  solved;  a  goal  attained;  existence  is 
more  real  and  many  things  take  on  a  new  meaning.  In  nor- 
mal natures  the  world  seems  suffused  with  a  certain  joy  un- 
known before ;  physiological  vitality  is  more  or  less  enhanced ; 
unused  functions  come  into  play ;  life  is  more  completely  polar- 
ized and  charged  with  a  worth  and  value  unfelt  before.  There 
ought  to  be  a  mild  ecstasy  and  exaltation  of  soul  and  the  dull 
prose  of  life  should  become  more  or  less  poetic.  If,  however, 
there  is  defect  on  the  one  side  or  violence  on  the  other,  all 
this  is  changed  and  disenchantment  may  turn  joy  to  ashes,  and 
in  an  hour  love  may  pass  into  deep-seated  and  permanent 
aversion.  In  the  great  majority  of  cases,  euphoria  is  mingled 
with  more  or  less  disphoria,  and  thus  these  initial  experiences 
are  algedonic,  giving  a  new  polarity  to  human  nature  as  it 
expands  under  the  influence  of  its  two  sovereign  masters, 
pleasure  and  pain. 

Good  Fatherhood  and  Sexual  Insufficiency. — To  be  an 
ideally  good  father  one  must  be  all  a  man,  hearty,  healthy, 
masculine,  worldly,  not  a  bookworm,  a  devotee  or  an  ascetic, 
not  predominantly  sedentary  in  habit  or  too  devoted  to  office, 
counting  room,  or  shop,  nor  overabsorbed  in  frenzied  finance 
or  anything  else  very  nerve  wearing.  He  must  not  be  chronic- 
ally anxious,  penurious,  or  censorious,  but  must  cultivate  a 
more  or  less  Aristotelian  temperance  in  all  things  and  be  a 
little  more  capable  of  appreciating  than  of  criticising.  There 
must  also  be  congeniality,  content,  more  or  less  prosi)erity  so 
that  life  can  be  a  little  easy  going;  a  man  must  not  be  fighting 
a  losing  battle  either  in  health,  business,  or  repute.  Nerves 
and  negative  tenets  are  both  unfavorable  to  true  and  full 
paternity  which  must  command  the  sincere  respect  and  affec- 
tion of  a  wife,  who  must  not  be  educated  in  a  way  or  to  a  point 


512  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

that  will  cause  her  to  feel  him  inferior.  These  qualities  are 
essential  for  the  old  primitive  relations  which  nature  still  de- 
mands and  which  so  many  conditions  of  modern  life  tend  to 
pervert  or  thwart.  Polarity  is  a  vague,  and  affinity  a  dis- 
carded, and  counterparts  an  incorrect,  word,  but  each  has 
some  if  slight  designative  value,  though  it  be  only  provisional 
against  the  dawn  of  fuller  knowledge. 

If  the  husband  is  effeminate,  not  completely  sexed,  over- 
strained or  strenuous  on  the  one  hand,  or  inactive  on  the  other, 
overprone  to  self-indulgence,  exotically  pious  or  transmundane, 
cruel,  weak,  peppery  in  temper,  feeble  or  sickly  in  head, 
thorax,  loins  or  limbs,  or  if  he  is  exacting,  exiguous,  severely 
dogmatic,  too  insistently  about  the  house  or  too  long  absent, 
if  his  conduct  or  character  causes  wifely  jealousy  or  the  slight- 
est fear  of  alienation  of  affections,  or  even  any  abatement  of 
implicit  confidence,  if  he  does  not  deeply  desire  children  and 
welcome  the  prospect  of  them  even  at  the  cost  of  self-denial 
and  if  his  nature  is  not  such  as  to  inspire  confidence  so  that  he 
can  practice  it,  if  his  moods  are  uncertain  and  fluctuating  and 
he  is  subject  to  caprices,  if  he  is  prone  to  invading  any  of  the 
privacies  the  wife  loves  and  needs,  does  not  trust  her  fully, 
meddles,  is  disposed  to  dominate  where  she  should  rule,  has 
habits  or  even  symptoms  that  cause  her  apprehension  or 
physical  disgust — such  a  man  cannot  be  a  perfect  father.  The 
body  and  soul  of  the  wife  constitute  her  an  inconceivably  subtle 
organ  of  registration  for  any  and  every  such  defect  of  his,  deep 
down  below  her  consciousness,  and  she  cannot  shield  the  child 
she  is  bearing  from  reproducing  some  resultants  of  these  faults 
of  full  paternity. 

The  immediate  effects  of  masculine  insuMciency  are  that 
the  wife  cannot  yield  herself  completely  and  with  the  utter 
resignation,  not  to  say  abandon,  that  her  whole  system  needs, 
to  his  embraces  and  there  are  subliminal  and  perhaps  auto- 
matic reservations  far  below  her  control,  and  these  occur  in 
both  body  and  soul  and  thus  even  coital  experiences  are  imper- 
fect and  that  on  both  sides.  These  summital  moments  there- 
fore do  not  normalize  life  as  they  should  and  their  rhythm  is 
marred.  The  satisfaction  which  ought  to  pervade  the  whole 
system  is  only  partial  and  perhaps  fragmentary.  It  is  not  led 
up  to  gradually  by  caresses  and  other  prolonged  tokens  and 


THE    PEDAGOGY   OF    SEX  513 

stages  of  progressive  endearment  involving  all  the  psyche  and 
soma.  Nature  decrees  a  long  and  elaborate  scheme  of  ap- 
proaches through  which  every  advancing  stage  of  first  court- 
ship should  be  recapitulated.  All  her  many  curves  that  lead 
up  to  this  sacrament  of  the  transmission  of  life  ascend  grad- 
ually and  never  abruptly.  Not  only  must  every  trace  and 
residue  of  aversion  and  even  reluctance  be  overcome,  but  all 
inclinations  of  every  part  and  faculty  should  converge  to- 
ward the  focal  event.  Here  the  will  and  way  of  woman  should 
be  supreme  and  till  her  great  biological  function  of  consent 
is  fully  and  joyously  exercised,  the  interests  of  posterity  for- 
bid the  male  to  force  his  advances.  Every  element  of  his 
disposition  that  tends  to  make  her  violate  this  law,  be  it  the 
nervous  impetuosity  that  cannot  wait  a  little  for  a  greater 
good,  the  selfishness  that  can  enjoy  at  another's  expense,  the 
defective  love  that  can  take  without  giving  equally,  or  brutal 
aggression,  impairs  love  and  so  impairs  paternity.  The  weak, 
tense,  neurotic  man  is  always  precipitate  and  this  leaves  the 
woman  excited  but  not  satisfied,  never  perhaps  knowing  what 
it  is  to  come  to  a  climax.  The  man  thinks  her  cold  when  she 
is  only  slow  and  normal,  while  he  is  so  sudden  that  he  never 
dreams  of  her  passional  potentialities  and  still  less  of  her  pro- 
found needs  which  he  only  tantalizes.  The  sympathetic  system 
and  the  pelvic  brain  dominate  in  woman  and  these  are  very 
slow  but  very  climactical  in  their  action.  In  man  the  ingre- 
dient of  volition  is  far  greater  and  the  cerebro-spinal  centers 
come  more  prominently  into  function  and  coerce  the  s}Tn- 
pathetic  ganglia  at  more  rapid  tempo.  Nearly  all  types  of 
defective  husbandhood  complete  this  function  before  wifehood 
is  fully  ready  and  in  all  such  cases  fertilization  is  more  or  less 
uncertain  and  quasi  artificial.  The  effects  of  ever  inhibited 
connection  upon  woman  are  deleterious  alike  to  the  conjugal 
relations  and  to  offsi)ring.  The  germ  cell  is  left  at  the  door 
and  whether  it  is  later  taken  in  or  finds  its  own  way  to  the 
ovum,  it  may  be  conceived  of  as  having  to  pass  through  the 
stage  of  unnatural  experiences  and  to  have  to  put  forth  ab- 
normal efforts  to  reach  its  goal  all  because  the  male  function 
is  incomplete. 

There  is  now  growing  reason  to  believe  that  this  is  one 
cause  of  the  unique  race  suicide  of  native-born  Americans. 
34' 


514  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

Where  the  air  is  so  clear  and  ablaze  with  light  and  life  and 
often  very  dry,  where  time  is  money  and  get-rich-quick 
schemes  and  snatched  lunches  accelerate  the  personal  equation, 
aod  push  and  rush  get  there  and  even  old  age  is  not  calm  and 
restful  but  often  marked  by  irritable  weakness,  it  is  perhaps 
not  surprising  that  consciousness  should  encroach  upon  the 
vegetative  system  and  sufficient  time  for  the  most  important 
act  of  life  be  grudged  or  hurried  through  madly,  as  we  gulp 
our  whisky  instead  of  sipping  it  at  leisure  like  nature's  gentle- 
men, or  as  we  bolt  our  food  instead  of  performing  the  full 
predigestive  function  of  mastication.  When  even  the  sym- 
pathetic system  of  nerves  normally  slow  in  all  their  processes 
has  come  to  act  suddenly  as  does  the  cerebro-spinal  system, 
rest  may  restore  the  balance  between  them  and  subordinate 
the  latter  which  is  newer  and  superposed  to  the  law  of  the 
former  as  it  should  be.  The  reproductive  act  is  as  old  as  sex 
and  for  eons  has  been  dominated  by  the  ganglionic  centers  and 
their  ancient  sway  and  fashion  cannot  be  invaded  by  the  more 
recent  cerebral  modes  of  activity  with  impunity. 

Besides  progressive  sterility  another  effect  of  this  sexual 
neurasthenia  is  degeneration  of  the  female  function.  Woman 
in  her  prime  is  almost  all  first  the  sex  and  then  mother,  if  we 
interpret  these  functions  as  broadly  and  as  highly  as  we  now 
must.  Her  entire  life  during  the  reproductive  age  is  within 
the  inner  or  the  outer  circles  of  the  domain  of  love.  Every- 
thing that  pertains  to  it  has  worth,  value,  interest,  and  nothing 
else  has.  It  has  a  wide,  diversified  realm  richly  dight  with  in- 
cident, charged  with  varied  emotions ;  but  the  nucleus  and  vital 
nodes  of  it  all  that  give  it  not  only  unity,  but  reality  are  the 
few  full  supreme  acts  of  love.  If  these  are  lacking,  abortive 
or  defective,  her  life  is  at  best  a  little  falsetto  and  unreal  and 
there  is  more  or  less  disenchantment,  while  the  substitutes 
such  as  charity,  art,  and  culture  are  sought;  and  denied  the 
primal,  women  come  to  accept  the  second-rate  choice  of  life. 
This  is  the  case  not  only  with  the  unwed  but  with  wives  whose 
husbands  do  not  and  cannot  fully  satisfy  their  bodies  and  souls. 
They  break  away  from  their  proper  sphere  because  man  has 
not  done  his  part  to  make  them  happy  in  it.  Hunger  is  one 
great  cause  of  migration  and  truancy  and  prompts  those  who 
suffer  from  it  to  seek  other  scenes,  and  it  was  because  woman's 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  515 

Eden  was  in  this  sense  Adamless  that  she  is  now  retiring 
from  it  and  taking  refuge  beside  man  in  his  own  walks  of  life 
and  work.  Thus,  as  he  became  more  or  less  evirated,  she  in 
corresponding  degree  must  therefore  become  defeminized. 
She  accommodates  herself  to  secondary  sexual  functions  and 
magnifies  these  because  those  that  are  primary  are  denied  her ; 
and  always  man's  counterpart,  save  where  conscious  imitation 
makes  her  like  him,  she  became  apathetic  and  slow  in  sex  as 
he  grew  precipitate  because  she  was  not  heated  to  the  degree 
of  fusion;  her  melting  point  has  grown  higher  while  his  has 
lowered.  One  requires  more  and  the  other  less  than  the  nor- 
mal stimulus  in  order  to  evoke  the  complete  response.  Thus 
physiological  misfits  arise  perhaps  in  part  because  males  re- 
spond quickest  to  changes  in  the  environment  such  as  are 
involved  in  passing  from  the  old  world  of  less  to  the  new 
world  of  greater  tonicity,  and  woman,  who  adjusts  to  such 
environmental  new  conditions  more  slowly,  may  do  so  in  time 
and  thus  a  new  equilibrium  be  established.  Teeming  Asia 
long  ago  attained  stable  relations,  Europe  is  transitional,  and 
America  may  eventually  find  a  new  equipoise  in  which  the 
brain  is  more  than  ever  regnant  over  the  vegetative  function. 
Husbands  judge  and  weigh  their  wives  when  pregnant — 
and,  indeed,  on  through  lactation — by  other  standards,  for  the 
tests  of  motherhood  are  very  different  from  those  of  wifehood. 
Here,  too,  questionnaire  data  have  been  gathered  from  one 
hundred  fathers  of  different  types.  One  writes :  "  While  she 
had  been  fairly  well  before  and  seemed  even  better  now,  I 
feared  a  breakdown  ere  it  was  all  over  and  worried  at  every 
symptom, 'first  of  all  for  her.  but  also  for  the  child.  I  married 
for  love  and  rather  suddenly  and  had  thought  little  about  this 
as  we  were  both  young,  but  now  I  realized  how  nervous  her 
family  were  and  that  one  of  her  brothers  had  been  dissipated 
and  committed  suicide  and  I  had  many  forebodings."  *  "  Three 
out  of  seven  of  her  brotiiers  and  sisters  were  deaf  and  although 
she  heard  [)erfectly  I  dreaded  lest  our  child  should  Ix*  born 
deaf.  I  rememl^ered  that  she  had  not  wanted  children  and 
feared  it  was  from  a  sense  of  this  danger."  "  She  was  so  un- 
reasonable at  times  that  I  thought  of  insanity  and  even  asked 


'  £ach  of  the  following  <{uotations  is  from  a  difTcR-nt  father. 


5i6  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

incidentally  if  it  had  ever  existed  in  any  branch  of  her  family." 
"  She  told  me  when  in  this  condition  that  her  mother  had 
borne  an  abnormal  child  and  that  another  was  stillborn,  and 
I  saw  that  she  was  yet  more  weak  and  delicate  than  her  mother 
was."  "  I  knew  there  was  consumption  in  both  her  family 
and  mine  and  had  heard  that  the  disease  was  cumulative  in 
the  offspring,  but  I  did  not  reflect  on  this  beforehand,  al- 
though I  was  warned.  Now  it  came  home  to  me."  "  I  con- 
fess I  was  greatly  grieved  and  disappointed  that  my  wife  could 
not  nurse  the  child."  "  Her  mother  died  in  childbirth  and  I 
feared  she  would."  "  I  realized  that  she  had  been  an  only 
child,  her  mother  one  of  two,  and  her  father  one  of  three ;  and 
so  began  to  fear  she  would  be  barren  and  when  she  was  with 
child  constantly  expected  miscarriage  or  that  a  weakling 
would  be  born."  "  My  boys  were  both  slender  and  delicate 
like  their  mother  and  we  had  a  hard  time  rearing  them." 
"  She  was  slender,  used  to  lace  tight  and  was  a  good  and  true 
wife  to  me,  but  could  not  have  a  child."  "  My  ideal  always 
had  been  to  have  a  large  family  like  my  brothers  and  sisters, 
but  she  was  not  that  kind.  The  doctor  said  the  trouble  was 
with  her  and  said  it  was  on  the  wife's  side  about  seven  times 
out  of  eight,  but  he  could  suggest  nothing  and  I  grew  de- 
spondent and  thought  of  many  things.  She  was  very  affec- 
tionate but  I  could  not  help  thinking  of  divorce  and  sometimes 
it  seemed  my  duty  to  our  business  and  our  name,  but  I  did  not 
and  now  it  is  too  late."  "  Most  of  our  acquaintances  of  our 
age  had  children,  while  we  could  not.  It  was  very,  very  bitter 
and  my  affection  for'^my  wife  paled  a  little,  despite  myself." 
"  I  never  half  appreciated  my  wife  until  I  saw  how  easily  and 
naturally  she  took  to  having  and  caring  for  children.  She 
grew  more  beautiful,  too.  I  never  dreamed  the  slim  young 
girl  I  married  would  do  and  be  all  she  did  and  was  as  a 
mother."  "  Before  I  was  the  pivot  about  which  all  turned, 
now  I  was  only  mate  and  she  captain,  a  jolly  crew  in  the  nurs- 
ery. It  was  all  luck  for  I  thought  of  her  in  the  early  days  of 
our  marriage  as  made  only  for  my  own  delectation."  "  She 
had  been  a  girl,  but  when  her  condition  was  known,  she  seemed 
to  grow  up  into  a  splendid  woman,  I  am  a  physician  and 
know  of  the  many  dangers  that  beset  every  stage,  but  she  suf- 
fered not  the  least  from  any  one  of  them.    Indeed,  I  was  a  bit 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  5^7 

mortified  that  I  had  almost  nothing  to  do,  save  at  the  confine- 
ment itself.  I  talked  and  warned  and  sometimes  spoke  of 
perils.  She  was  good  enough  to  say  nothing,  but  she  might 
have  ridiculed  and  even  taunted  me  in  her  heart  for  my  fears," 
Some  fathers  fortunate  like  the  last  above  seem  to  con- 
gratulate themselves  smugly  for  their  foresight  in  selecting 
such  wives  with  an  amusing  and  scantily  veiled  affectation  of 
conceit  and  pose  as  if  they  would  counsel  young  men  to  imi- 
tate them  in  the  wisdom  of  their  choice.  A  very  few  advise 
their  sons  to  consider  the  mother  of  any  girl  they  are  inter- 
ested in  and  realize  that  the  latter  will  be  and  do  about  as  the 
former  was  and  did,  to  consider  if  the  family  and  stock  is 
good,  if  there  are  substantial  staying  domestic  qualities  in  the 
blood,  strength,  endurance,  regularity,  order,  and  even  means 
equal  to  their  own,  from  five  to  ten  years'  difference  in  age, 
no  feministic  theories  too  deeply  ingrained,  no  too  confirmed 
habits  of  coquetry,  etc. — all  these  in  a  way  that  suggest  the 
breeder's  stirpicultural  view  which  is  so  bitterly  and  sometimes 
frantically  resented  by  women,  especially  those  whose  defi- 
ciencies such  standards  suggest.  This  point  of  view  has  been 
the  target  of  a  great  deal  of  popular  ridicule.  But  one  of  the 
most  pathetic  aspects  of  life  is  seen  when  the  young  husband 
feels  that  the  bride  of  his  heart  is  weighed  and  found  wanting 
in  this  supreme  test  to  which  the  instinct  of  the  most  loving 
husband  inevitably  subjects  her,  however  loyal  he  may  remain 
and  however  tender  his  ministrations.  Girls  and  their  edu- 
cators should  ponder  this  critical  stage  in  a  wife's  life  be- 
times. Every  normal  husband  reaches  a  period  in  his  develop- 
ment sooner  or  later  when  he  wants  offspring  and  heirs, 
wants  them  supremely,  and  if  they  are  lacking  he  is  (|uite 
l)rone  to  surmise  that  the  fault  lies  with  the  wife.  Often  to 
himself  he  inventories  her  qualities  of  motherhood,  and  this 
examination  is  conducted  by  very  different  methods  and  is  a 
vastly  harder  one  to  pass  than  that  involved  in  the  selection 
of  courtshvjx  Shortcoming  here  is,  of  course,  more  often  con- 
dcMied  because  the  love  which  first  cemented  two  lives  remains 
and  also  Ix'cause  men  can  make  tolerable  shift  to  live  and  even 
Ik*  happy  in  that.  Even  if  there  is  inner  alienation,  outer  tics 
often  prompt  the  husband  to  make  a  virtue  out  of  his  neces- 
sity and  there  may  Ik*  an  effort  to  make  even  more  (^f  what 


5i8  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

remains  of  love,  but  it  is  love  with  renunciation  of  its  choicest 
fruit.  Other  husbands  are  a  little  more  exacting  or  grow 
slightly  more  formal  as  duty  is  invoked  to  eke  out  affection, 
or  they  may  become  a  little  more  demonstrative  outwardly 
to  make  up  for  waning  inner  spontaneity.  Some  husbands 
abandon  themselves  more  to  selfish  gratification  with  their 
wives  as  the  chance  increases  that  such  excess  will  not  impair 
offspring,  while  others  become  querulous  and  censorious  as  if 
they  had  been  deeply  wronged  and  some  lapse  toward  dejec- 
tion. All  this  may  be  done  while  keeping  up  a  brave  show  of 
indifference.  The  fact  that  there  is  a  chance  that  it  is  his 
fault  and  may  be  considered  so  by  his  own  acquaintances  is 
profoundly  mortifying  to  his  sense  of  manhood  and  this  ex- 
posure to  ridicule  he  may  charge  up  against  his  wife.  As  a 
man  of  the  world,  he  fancies  many  things  club  gossips  might 
say  of  him,  as  he  has  heard  them  talk  of  others.  There  is  al- 
ways at  the  best  in  aging  childless  couples  something  a  little 
falsetto  in  their  love,  as  there  is  a  pathetic  pitifulness  in  their 
condition.  They  have  compromised  with  life  and  must  put  up 
with  only  the  second  best  of  it.  Name  and  estate  approach 
extinction.  They  have  not  been  kept  young  by  children,  have 
not  profited  by  them  to  project  their  own  being  into  the  future 
and  they  must  die  doubly,  once  in  their  own  persons  and  again 
for  their  race  or  family.  If  poor,  there  are  none  to  care  for 
them  in  old  age,  and  if  rich,  their  accumulations  must  be  dis- 
sipated among  relatives  or  strangers.  Such  are  the  obvious 
and  inevitable  thoughts  that  begin  first  faintly  and  then  more 
palpably  to  hover  over  the  horizon  of  consciousness  and  haze 
the  brightness  of  its  skies  when  the  possibility  of  childlessness 
is  progressively  realized  and  the  higher  dispensation  of  pa- 
rental thought  which  should  supervene  upon  that  of  marital 
love  is  jeopardized  and  lost.  The  husband  may  begin  to  ex- 
amine his  own  past  life  and  blame  himself  for  real  or  fancied 
errors  and  often  the  whole  personality  of  his  wife,  body  and 
soul,  is  passed  in  review.  He  reflects  upon  many  things  that 
he  now  deeply  realizes  that  he  should  have  thought  of  before, 
of  her  relatives'  pedigree;  and  her  habits,  mode  of  life,  and 
regimen  are  gone  over  in  quest  of  the  cause  not  only  of  steril- 
ity, but  of  each  and  every  defect  during  gestation  and  even 
lactation  and  sometimes  drastic,  if  ignorant,  prescriptions  are 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  5^9 

urged  upon  her,  while  cruder  souls  may  even  indulge  in  bitter 
reproaches.  Of  course  there  are,  too,  unnatural  husbands  who 
never  want  children  but  desire  only  personal  pleasure.  Pov- 
erty or  even  niggardliness  or  perhaps  a  sense  of  their  own 
physical  or  mental  unsoundness — each  and  all  of  these  may 
bring  men  to  this  pass,  and  so  may  a  chronic  aversion  to  the 
noise,  care  and  confusion  caused  by  children.  Some  of  all 
these  appear  in  our  questionnaire  returns.  But,  as  a  whole, 
such  types  later  will  and  probably  should  become  extinct,  and 
as  they  do  not  contribute  to  posterity,  they  will  not  here  be 
discussed. 

As  a  rule,  the  youngest  wives  are  most  prone  to  feel  grief 
and  loss  when  they  first  realize  that  they  are  to  become 
mothers  and  the  oldest  to  anticipate  pain  and  danger.  This 
is  natural  and  it  would  seem  that  the  satisfaction  is  greatest 
near  the  middle  or  later  twenties.  The  general  sentiment  is 
that  a  longer  or  shorter  period  of  wedded  life  should  be  ex- 
empt during  which  husband  and  wife  can  be  all  and  all  to  each 
other.  This  is  partly  traceable  to  the  prevalence  of  hyper- 
romantic  ideas  of  love  and  wedlock  favored  by  modern  novel 
reading,  but  for  people  maturely  nubile  it  is  doubtless  a  mis- 
take not  only  for  the  best  interests  of  posterity  but  for  the 
greatest  mutual  happiness.  Initial  excess,  if  it  does  not  bring 
immediate  disenchantment  and  perhaps  aversion,  often  sows 
the  seed  of  it  later,  while  the  now  established  average  infe- 
riority of  firstborn  children,  when  it  is  just  these  who  ought 
to  inherit  the  full  primal  vigor  of  their  parents,  shows  that  we 
have  wandered  from  nature's  way.  It  is  now  practically 
proven  that  there  is  a  postmarital  decline  of  reproductive  vigor 
which  begins  very  soon  after  wedlock  and  that  this  is  later 
followed  by  a  slight  rise  of  its  curve  corresponding  to  an  ebb 
of  excess  and  that  this  secondary  increase  occurs  after  there 
has  l)een  some  abatement  of  the  pace  set  during  the  first  weeks 
or  months. 

In  many  cases  the  father  is  now  for  the  first  time  critically 
judged  and  his  faults  realized  in  fear  lest  they  ajipcar  in  the 
child.  One  woman  writes:  "  I  now  saw  clearly  that  he  was  a 
scamp  and  felt  that  the  child  of  such  a  man  must  be  born  a 
moral  cripple.  As  a  husband  I  thought  I  loved  him.  hut  as  a 
father  he  appeared  in  a  very  different  light.     I  should  have 


520  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

thought  of  this  before,  but  I  was  very  young  (eighteen)." 
Another  writes  (condensing  the  substance  of  a  long  communi- 
cation) :  "  He  proved  to  have  a  loathsome  disease  and  gave  it 
to  me,  so  I  knew  beforehand  the  child  would  be  tainted.  The 
doctors  told  me  the  child  might  take  the  worst  results  of  the 
disease  and  leave  me  better.  I  thought  I  ought  to  want  it  to 
be  the  other  way  and  I  take  it  all  and  let  the  child  go  scot 
free,  but  I  could  not.  My  one  hope  was  that  I  might  be  well 
whatever  befell  the  child.  I  had  heard  that  infected  men  often 
hoped  to  relieve  themselves  by  imparting  their  disease  to  in- 
nocent healthy  women,  but  surely  this  is  the  very  opposite  of 
love.  It  is  the  worst  and  most  selfish  thing  I  can  think  of. 
Why  did  no  one,  his  doctor  or  some  one  else,  warn  me?  Is 
there  no  vengeance  on  earth  or  in  heaven  for  such  conduct  ?  " 
Another  says :  "  My  husband  was  really  too  old  and  also  too 
exhausted  to  have  children.  We  both  knew  it  and  felt  safe 
with  our  precautions,  but  my  condition  was  an  accident,  at 
least  he  said  so  and  I  tried  to  believe  him,  but  cannot  escape 
the  thought  that  perhaps  in  a  moment  of  weakness  he  intended 
it  for  his  greater  pleasure."  Another  says :  "  I  was  of  a  nerv- 
ous temperament  and  he  still  more  so.  Perhaps  this  similar- 
ity drew  us  together  and  made  us  personally  congenial,  but 
we  thought  too  little  of  offspring  at  first  and  now  I  feared  my 
child  might  be  insane  or  idiotic."  Another  heard  after  she 
was  in  this  condition  that  her  husband  had  been  dissipated 
before  his  marriage  and  so  feared  the  results.  Several  thought 
now  their  husbands  were  disappointed  and  took  less  interest  in 
them  and  suspected  that  they  had  consoled  themselves  with 
other  women  and  so  realized  that  they  must  face  the  ordeal, 
and  life  afterwards  alone,  for  love  was  dead,  and  one  asked 
advice  as  to  what  to  do.  One  feared  she  was  too  old  to  go 
through  it  all.  Her  husband  was  young  and  lusty  and  had 
already  begun  to  care  less  for  her.  Often  the  fear  was  ex- 
pressed that  the  husband  would  be  unable  to  control  himself 
during  so  long  a  period  and  would  turn  to  other  loves.  Judg- 
ment of  the  husband,  point  by  point,  and  self-examination  as 
to  their  own  fitness  of  body  and  soul  were  common.  Several 
were  apprehensive  of  results  of  too  much  previous  self-indul- 
gence. "  I  wanted  my  husband  to  be  now  just  a  good  faithful 
friend  who  would  care  for  me  and  whom  I  could  trust  and 


THE    PEDAGOGY    OF    SEX  521 

lean  on  more  and  more,  but  he  did  not  fulfill  this  wish."  One 
wanted  all  younger  women  to  be  made  to  realize  just  what 
they  would  feel  when  in  this  condition  so  that  they  could  judge 
their  wooers  beforehand  by  the  same  standards  that  loomed  up 
now.  A  few  wanted  children  so  ardently  and  so  long  in  vain 
that  they  began  to  suspect  themselves  or  their  husbands  of 
abnormality,  and  grew  depressed  or  resentful  and  suspicious 
according  as  they  thought  the  fault  to  be  his  or  their  own. 
Waning  confidence  and  love  flamed  up  again  when  this  con- 
dition came.  One  ascribed  all  the  pains  and  restraints  of  this 
stage  to  her  husband.  "  He  knew  it  all  beforehand  for  he  was 
a  doctor  and  I  an  unsophisticated  girl,  but  he  deliberately  let 
me  go  through  it  all."  Another  writes :  "  I  wanted  a  girl  be- 
cause I  thought  his  faults  would  be  more  likely  to  be  repro- 
duced in  a  boy."  Sometimes  when  perversion  is  feared  the 
coming  mother  finds  comfort  in  resolving  and  planning  how 
by  regimen  beforehand  and  by  nurture  afterwards  she  may 
correct  the  faults  of  nature.  "  If  Weismann  is  right,  and  noth- 
ing after  conception  or  after  birth  helps,  it  is  ghastly  fatalism, 
and  we  might  as  well  give  up,"  writes  a  graduate.  Some  re- 
view their  training  at  home  and  in  school,  and  are  censorious 
of  parents  and  teachers,  surroundings,  influences,  etc.,  and  one 
studied  up  all  available  data  of  her  own  and  her  husband's 
pedigree  to  forecast  the  results  upon  her  child.  All  in  all 
then,  this  state  is  a  g^eat  revealer  and  brings  in  new  interests, 
criteria,  standards  of  judging  men,  women,  education,  and 
society.  Woman's  great  function  of  sex  selection  in  choosing 
the  father  of  her  child  stands  forth  in  a  new  light :  "  Choose  as 
you  would  wish  you  had  when  in  this  condition,"  is  the  coun- 
sel several  suggest.  In  savagery  and  among  all  civilized  races 
we  find  traces  of  the  idea  that  pregnant  women  have  divining 
power  and  that  they  have  new,  deeper  and  truer  insights ;  and 
all  men,  even  though  dimly,  feel  that  now  they  are  being  in- 
tuitively examined  as  before  a  higher  tribunal,  and  it  is  this 
that  makes  unworthy  men  shrink  away  and  impels  the  best  to 
wholesome  introspection  and  perhaps  to  resolutions  of  Ix'ttcr- 
ment,  more  tcmj)erance  next  time,  etc.  One  father  confesses 
that  >K)w  he  realized  his  own  errors  in  the  past  and  tried  to 
atone  by  more  tender  care  and  mapix-'d  out  for  himself  a  new 
sexual  regimen  in  the  future. 


522  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

Primitive  mothers  left  to  themselves  in  this  state  seek  to 
hide  for  protection  and  quiet.  They  crave  solitude,  although 
it  is  for  safety  rather  than  for  mental  realization.  They  are 
more  helpless,  and  if  war,  conquest,  or  rapid  flight  of  the  tribe 
comes,  they  chiefly  suffer  and  may  be  slain  by  their  captors  or 
even  by  their  fellow  tribesmen  as  an  incumbrance  retarding 
migrations.  Otherwise  custom  may  prescribe  isolation  and 
enforce  many  taboos  of  diet  and  regimen  so  that  women  are 
the  victims  of  many  a  senseless  superstition.  But  even  from 
this  they  often  seek  escape  to  be  free  as  all  women  should  be 
more  than  at  any  other  time.  The  women  about  them  realize 
better  than  men  that  those  now  awaiting  motherhood  should  be 
a  law  to  themselves,  be  exempt  from  many  wonted  duties  and 
granted  privileges  and  immunities.  This  unaccustomed  con- 
dition in  communities  where  woman  is  still  servile,  she  some- 
times utilizes  to  the  uttermost  to  impose  her  will  and  even  her 
whims  upon  those  about  her.  Often  she  is  thought  to  be 
prophetic  and  a  seeress.  Her  new  liberty  becomes  license  and 
her  spontaneity  and  fecund  fancy  now  that  she  is  relieved  of 
drudgery  make  her  not  only  the  arbiter  of  her  own  destiny 
but  enable  her  to  enforce  her  rule  upon  those  about  her,  for 
she  demands  homage  from  all.  Even  if  they  do  not  care  for 
her,  she  feels  a  sense  of  power  and  accepts  for  herself  services 
which  she  knows  are  really  for  her  child.  If  she  lacks  wisdom 
to  guide,  she  revels  in  enforcing  obedience  to  her  caprices. 
This  is  one  of  the  choicest  prerogatives  of  her  sex.  Now  for  a 
time  she  is  queen  at  least  to  her  little  circle  and  she  gravitates 
by  instinct  to  those  who  will  obey  and  revere  her.  She  delights 
in  being  the  center  of  attraction,  the  object  of  new  interest  and 
uses  every  woman's  resource  to  have  her  own  way  and  assert 
her  sway.  She  has  immunity,  too,  from  injury,  for  she  is  not 
punished  and  can  now  violate  many  restraints  formerly  imposed 
upon  her  with  impunity.  In  the  glorious  day  of  her  full-flow- 
ered maidenhood  she  queened  it  for  herself,  but  this  dominion 
departed  when  she  was  married  and  appropriated  by  one,  but 
now  she  can  assert  her  power  again  in  a  new  way  dear  to  her 
inmost  heart  because  of  the  child.  What  are  many  of  the  traits 
of  hysteria  in  those  childless  and  unwed  but  a  blind  instinct 
to  be  again  a  center  of  interest,  a  problem  to  be  studied,  a  mis- 
tress to  be  obeyed,  all  without  paying  the  price  of  pregnancy  ? 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  523 

The  gravid  woman's  center  of  interest  is  transferred  to 
new  fields  and  almost  transformed.  Husband,  other  children, 
social  aims  and  pets  now  become  secondary.  Not  a  few 
women  of  laboriously  acquired  learning  and  accomplishments 
especially  state  that  their  literature,  science,  learning,  music, 
painting,  etc.,  practically  cease  to  exist  for  them  and  become 
as  vanity,  for  their  psychic  stage  is  set  for  a  more  absorbing 
drama  in  which  all  these  old  zests  become  at  best  but  lay 
figures.  Another  4<ind  and  order  of  knowledge  now  comes  to 
have  chief  value  and  is  sought  from  elderly  women,  doctors 
and  occasionally  books,  and  of  this,  alas !  for  our  education  of 
girls,  most  deplored  their  ignorance,  some  with  bitterness  and 
reproaches,  for  many  suffered  grievously  for  lack  of  elementary 
knowledge.  There  was  censure  for  parents,  friends,  teachers, 
schools,  and  colleges,  prudish  reticence  and  of  the  church. 
"  The  Catholics  are  told,"  said  a  Protestant.  "  The  poorer 
people  of  the  lower  classes  know ;  but  in  our  circle  it  was 
thought  indelicate  to  speak  of  and  unfashionable  to  under- 
stand, so  that  ignorance  where  it  did  not  exist  was  sometimes 
feigned."  said  in  substance  a  young  mother  of  high  social 
position.  Should  the  training  we  give  girls  leave  them  such 
helpless  novices  in  the  duties  of  that  period  of  life  when  the 
future  of  the  race  is  so  intimately  bound  up  with  their  well- 
being  and  their  regimen  of  body  and  soul  ?  Our  few  score 
questionnaire  returns  suggest  that  the  most  educated  young 
women  are  most  ignorant  of  the  things  those  who  are  to  be 
mothers  most  need  to  know. 

The  attitude  toward  impending  pain  and  danger  is  in  most 
normal  cases  one  of  buoyance  and  hope.  There  are  few  or 
no  worries  partly  because  these  are  bad  for  the  child.  There 
is  no  interest  in  the  statistics  of  death  in  child-bed  or  in  com- 
plications or  operations  and  little  conception  of  the  horrifying 
array  of  gynecological  apparatus,  surgical  jjroccsses.  diseases 
and  ix)ssible  abnormal  processes,  but  generally  a  trancjuil  and 
almost  sublime  optimism  or  indifference  and  jK-rhaps  a  positive 
desire  to  suffer  all  of  it  to  become  more  complete  thereby, 
which  prompts  some  to  refuse  narcotics  even  in  prolonged  and 
painful  lalx)r  as  better  because  it  is  nature's  way.  Thus,  there 
is  often  a  calm  heroism  that  man,  who  usually  knows  less  of 
pain,  wots  little  of,   for  women   often   truly  enjoy  suffering 


524  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

for  those  they  love  and  may  crave  or  seek  it  as  something 
needful  to  their  perfection.  The  body  of  the  gravid  mother 
is  in  a  biological  sense  only  the  nidus  of  the  child  which 
grows  at  its  expense  and  in  some  sense  subordinates  all  its 
powers  and  functions  to  its  own  welfare,  and  woman's  in- 
tuitions respond  to  this  involution  for  the  sake  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  offspring  by  a  deep  sense  that  her  decrease,  eclipse 
or  suffering  means  its  advancement  and  so  she  is  happy  in  her 
woe.  The  world  affords  no  parallel  to  this  algedonism  or  rap- 
ture of  agony.  Weal  and  woe,  cross  and  crown  are  not  an- 
tagonistic to  her,  but  are  units  underlying  her  life.  Surgical 
operations  half  as  painful  or  dangerous  would  appall  her  far 
more,  but  the  compensation  neutralizes  the  suffering  in  a  way 
which  modern  aesthetics  has  no  rubrics  to  explain.  Even 
death  for  something  dearer  than  life  is  always  far  closer  to 
woman's  nature  than  to  man's,  and  predisposes  her  when  final 
dissolution  comes  to  think  of  it  rather  as  the  birth  of  her  soul 
into  a  higher  life.  Hence,  self-sacrifice,  which  is  nearer  the 
heart  of  her  being  than  it  is  to  that  of  man,  helps  to  make  her 
more  religious  and  magnifies  the  patheticism  with  which  the 
New  Testament  regards  life.  A  religion  of  only  rapture  can 
never  appeal  to  woman.  It  is  this  inveterate  and  universal 
experience  of  her  sex  that  makes  it  sometimes  actually  crave 
abuse  and  cling  the  closer  to  those  who  maltreat  her,  for  to 
be  normal  and  happy  she  must  have  her  due  portion  of  pain 
and  if  it  does  not  befall  her,  she  may  passionately  invent 
misery  and  simulate  grief.  Pity  is  dear  to  her  and  is  often 
made  a  substitute  for  love  where  this  is  denied.  She  often 
exaggerates  her  pain  and  possibly  most  of  all  those  real  and 
great  ones  connected  with  childbearing,  but  pity  both  kindles 
and  revives  the  love  of  others  to  her.  Hence,  if  instead  of 
counterfeiting  she  conceals  her  distress  from  all,  this  is  so  op- 
posed to  her  instincts  that  it  vastly  augments  it. 

The  sensations  of  the  first  movements  of  the  child,  which 
constitute  an  important  point  in  law  and  have  been  elaborated 
in  folklore,  give  a  sudden  definiteness  to  the  sensation  of 
motherhood.  A  new  being  knocks  at  the  door  of  life  and  now 
the  maternal  consciousness  becomes  pure.  It  sometimes  brings 
a  realization  almost  startling,  and  there  is  a  new  unique  sense 
of  subordination  of  the  individual  to  the  race.     Some  think 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  525 

the  foetal  movements  somewhat  oracular,  favoring  certain 
courses  of  action  and  presence,  or  like  the  Socratic  demon 
dissuading  or  deterring  from  others.  This  affects  first  the 
mother's  posture  and  regimen  and  may  extend  to  happenings 
in  her  environment  and  thus  there  is  such  a  thing  as  cyemolatry 
(cyema  =.fcEtus).  From  the  energy,  frequency,  and  extent  of 
these  movements  some  mothers  think  the  sex  of  the  child  can 
be  determined  before  its  birth.  Some  fancy  they  can  distin- 
guish movements  of  discomfort  and  even  sleepiness  and  re- 
sentment from  those  of  spontaneous  activity  for  exercise. 
They  may  be  apprehensive  that  long  cessation  or  abatement  of 
them  means  danger  or  growing  weakness.  Some  are  made 
nervous  or  even  indignant  as  well  as  sleepless  if  movements  are 
excessive.  Becoming  irritable  themselves,  they  fear  their  child 
will  be  so.  Now  it  is  angry,  hungry,  sleepy,  playful,  etc. 
Some  fancy  or  find  that  its  activities  and  repose  depend  upon 
theirs.  One  mother  of  seven  children  always  foretold  the  sex 
aright  and  selected  the  name  in  advance,  two  of  which  were 
based  somewhat  upon  supposed  characteristics  from  this  trans- 
parietal acquaintance.  Some  even  attempt  caresses  and  fancy 
that  they  are  appreciated  or  perhaps  responded  to.  It  is  those 
to  whom  the  unborn  are  most  real  that  can  hardly  wait 
to  hold  and  behold  them.  One  evidently  somewhat  neurotic 
young  mother  imagined  her  unborn  babe  so  unusually  mature 
because  of  its  activity  that  she  thought  of  trying  to  procure 
a  premature  delivery  and  others  have  thought  their  nascent 
offspring  precociously  ripe  and  that  their  small  size  would 
reduce  the  pain  of  confinement.  Another  anticipated  unusual 
pain  thinking  the  child  not  only  oversized  but  overdue,  having 
miskept  her  time.  Besides  more  deliberate  naming,  the  un- 
Ijorn  is  often  thought  or  even  called  orally  many  an  endearing 
pet  name  and  talked  to  as  if  it  could  hear  and  thought  and  felt 
toward  as  if  it  could  respond  to  the  psychic  approaches  of  the 
mother.  Most  young  matrons  abhor,  especially  in  the  early 
and  middle  stages,  every  such  aspect  of  the  foetus  as  is  repre- 
sented in  text-lK)oks  of  embryology,  which  only  women  biolo- 
gists and  physicians  wish  to  inspect  or  study,  and  even  the  first 
sight  of  the  newborn  babe  may  repel  a  mother  l)ecause  of  its 
larval  ugliness.  Such  popular  imagery  of  the  unborn  as  most 
mothers  have  is  of  more  mature  stages,  or  of  babies  of  reduced 


526  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

dimensions,  or  sometimes  it  is  of  little  pucks,  brownies,  fairies, 
or  tiny  Christ  children;  or,  in  fine,  as  something  weird  or 
charmingly  little  (for  every  diminutive  is  endearing),  and  the 
place  they  slumber  and  grow  in  is  mystic  and  entranced.  Thus, 
here  again  we  meet  the  same  contrast  between  fact  and  fancy 
as  is  seen  between  the  moon  of  science,  cold,  arid,  a'nd  a  corpse 
of  a  world  prophetic  of  what  our  earth  is  to  be,  and  the  moon 
of  romance,  of  poetry  and  of  lovers.  There  is  a  sense  in 
which  fancy  is  the  truest  because  most  hygienic  and  optimistic. 
If  children  come  from  heaven,  it  follows  that  the  pelvis  is  their 
halfway  house  to  earth. 

As  many  animals  and  even  insects  prepare  often  very 
elaborate  nests  for  their  young  in  advance,  so  the  human 
mother  instinctively,  even  though  she  be  insane  and  idiotic, 
provides  clothing,  cradles,  cribs,  toilet  articles,  etc.  No  better 
occupation  of  both  hands  and  mind  is  possible.  The  child 
thus  slowly  becomes  an  imaginary  companion  as  the  psychic 
keeps  pace  with  the  biological  bifurcation  of  one  into  two  per- 
sonalities. Such  provision  for  unborn  children  should  be  made 
rather  than  bought  for  the  educational  effect  of  so  doing  upon 
the  mother,  for  nothing  so  steadies  her  moods  and  fortifies 
her  mind  and  contributes  to  make  the  change  from  life  within 
to  that  without  her  body  a  direct  continuum.  This  experience 
itself  contributes  something  to  the  proneness  of  woman  to 
think  in  dialogue  rather  than  monologue  and  to  project  her 
soul  into  the  future  in  a  practical  way  for  those  she  loves. 
We  say  the  animals  build  blindly,  mechanically,  prophetically 
for  their  young,  yet  without  distinct  prevision.  How  the 
stimulus  from  the  womb  starts  up  the  nest-building  activities, 
whether  it  is  knowledge  in  the  beast  or  instinct  in  man  that 
anticipates  the  migration  from  womb  to  cradle  and  the  change 
from  physiological  to  psychic  functional  care,  from  feeding 
from  the  blood  like  an  organ  of  the  parental  body  to  mammary 
nutrition,  from  the  warmth  and  shelter  of  the  pelvis  to  that 
provided  by  sewing,  from  gestation  to  incubation,  from  care 
of  self  to  care  of  baby,  is  one  of  the  most  challenging  and 
complex,  yet  baffling  problems  of  genetic  psychology.  It  is  a 
little  banal  to  say  that,  of  old,  certain  creatures  were  stimu- 
lated to  all  kinds  of  at  first  purely  aimless  activities  and  that 
then  certain  chance  arrangements  happened  to  be  more  helpful 


THE    PEDAGOGY    OF    SEX  527 

for  survival  than  others,  and  that  these  were  retained  and 
grew  apace  into  all  the  multifarious  kinds  of  preparation,  or 
that  this  latter  proved  so  economical  in  conserving  the  life  of 
offspring  that  less  individuals  had  to  be  produced  and  nature 
found  it  advantageous  to  detach  a  certain  amount  of  energy 
from  the  reproductive  processes  to  the  task  of  making  prenatal 
provisions  for  postnatal  needs.  What  is  the  relation  between 
the  impulse  to  build  a  nest  and  that  in  a  mother  to  prepare  a 
wardrobe,  or  how  do  the  two  differ?  Each  product  is  an  ex- 
tension or  a  proxy  for  the  parent's  body  and  both  are  perhaps 
equally  well  adapted  to  the  purpose.  For  the  only  difference 
between  them  is  consciousness.  Here  this  latter  becomes  insig- 
nificant and  problematical,  a  thing  of  words,  theories,  schools 
rather  than  of  life.  One  may  be  a  trifle  more  elaborated, 
but  just  in  the  degree  that  it  is  volitional  or  planful  it  becomes 
vacillating  and  uncertain.  The  human  mother  knozvs  that 
something  will  bud  from  her  body  that  needs  shelter  and  pro- 
tection to  be  prepared  beforehand,  and  the  bird  or  animal  feds 
the  same;  and  what  distinction  that  has  any  value  can  a 
thoroughgoing  pragmatism  find  between  them?  Surely  here 
the  difference  between  conscious  and  unconscious,  between  the 
psychological  and  biological  becomes,  if  not  a  little  imperti- 
nent, only  of  minimum  worth  for  life  and  thought.  Man's  one 
real  advantage  is  that  he  can  profit  more  by  imitation  and  by 
the  social  tradition  made  possible  by  language,  but  against  this 
must  be  offset  the  diminished  infallibility  of  his  instincts. 

During  parturition,  the  husband  is  generally  wanted. 
Some  very  young  mothers  experience  a  feeling  of  shame  and 
would  banish  him.  Some  want  him  in  the  next  room  ready  to 
enter  if  desired,  while  others  would  have  him  present  through- 
out, some  to  hold  their  hands,  others  to  assist,  etc.  Some  are 
so  conscious  of  his  presence  that  they  cover  their  face  during 
the  throes  that  he  may  not  see  the  distortions  caused  by  pain, 
smiling  at  him  l^etween  times.  If  his  composure  or  control  is 
not  fully  trusted,  he  must  stay  away.  Two  doctors'  wives 
cannot  trust  their  husbands,  one  on  account  of  his  nerves  and 
the  other  because  she  su.spects  his  knowledge,  and  two  are  glad 
he  can  do  it  all  and  no  strange  professional  is  necessary.  The 
selection  of  medical  aid  is  usually  left  to  him  and  women  rare- 
ly   ask    that    provision    l)e    made    for    possible    exceptional 


528  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

emergencies  and  are  alarmed  if  he  does  so.  If  present,  the 
husband  must  be  passive  and  complaisant,  and  if  there  is  the 
least  danger  that  he  may  attempt  to  assert  his  authority  or  to 
prescribe  any  items  of  conduct  to  nurse,  doctor,  or  wife,  he  is 
at  once  persona  non  grata.  The  wife's  consent  to  have  him 
present  is  no  doubt  partly  that  he  may  see  how  she  suffers  for 
him  and  for  the  child,  and  that  this  supreme  object  lesson  of 
devotion  and  self-sacrifice,  which  is  the  noblest  thing  in  wom- 
anhood, may  not  only  touch  his  sympathy  and  arouse  his  grati- 
tude and  appreciation,  but  increase  his  love.  Thus,  there  is 
an  ingredient,  however  small,  of  tact  and  diplomacy  in  her  de- 
sire for  his  presence.  Whatever  tenderness  he  was  made  to 
feel  for  her  condition  before,  now  reaches  its  maximum  and 
his  realization  of  what  it  all  means  may  not  come  amiss  in  the 
future. 

The  first  sight  of  the  baby,  especially  to  young  and  inex- 
perienced mothers,  is  disappointing  and  several  even  say 
"  disgusting."  One  avers  that  she  thought  she  never  could 
love  "  that  yellow  ugly  bundle  "  and  wanted  it  taken  away. 
Her  ideals  of  infantile  beauty  had  been  so  romantic  that  she 
half  expected  to  see  a  cherub  or  holy  bambino  with  a  halo  as 
in  pictures.  In  abnormal  cases,  this  aversion  may  intensify 
into  a  hate  and  spite  that  can  never  be  overcome  and  the 
mother  may  be  dangerous  to  the  child.  It  may  require  hours 
or  days  until  the  child  can  be  held  in  the  arms  and  nursed 
when  touch  sometimes  seems  to  conquer  sight.  The  vast 
majority  of  mothers  in  our  returns,  however,  long  for  the  first 
glimpse  of  their  darling,  are  intensely  happy  and  can  hardly 
wait  for  the  bath  and  dressing  to  be  over  to  clasp  it.  Some 
say  that  they  wish  to  see  if  it  is  sound  and  well  formed  and  to 
relieve  their  anxiety  upon  this  point.  The  first  glimpse  is 
often  supremely  delightful.  Tininess  itself  constitutes  an  ir- 
resistible appeal  and  so  does  helplessness,  and  there  are  tears 
of  joy,  and  some  can  hardly  wait  till  their  milk  has  fully  come 
to  nurse  it.  It  is  all  their  very  own,  flesh  of  their  flesh  and 
they  have  little  pangs  that  others  must  even  touch  it.  A  few 
begrudge  even  a  sight  of  it  at  first,  but  most  want  all  their 
friends  to  see  and  are  proud  at  every  expression  of  admiration 
or  interest.  It  must  above  all  be  protected  and  cuddled,  if  not 
fondled,  and  their  kisses  are  "  as  delicate  as  a  zephyr  and  as 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  529 

rapturous  as  heaven  itself."  Only  when  it  is  resting  by  their 
side  can  they  rest  after  all  they  have  been  through,  and  much 
as  they  need  to  sleep  they  wake  at  the  slightest  stir  or  sound, 
so  intimate  is  now  the  new  external  rapport.  Now  they  have 
it  in  the  objective  world  where  they  can  lavish  all  their  care 
upon  it  directly  and  can  do  for  it,  and  not  merely  diet,  rest,  and 
follow  certain  regimens  for  its  indirect  benefit. 

The  first  cry  is  usually  awaited  with  some  anxiety,  for  it 
means  life,  while  its  absence  is  death.  To  a  few  very  young 
mothers,  the  note  seems  harsh  and  repellent  or  sets  the  nerves 
aquiver  like  a  shrilling  dissonance.  Some  in  this  tense  state 
weep  because  it  seems  to  them  so  hoarse,  uncanny  or  persistent 
and  are  perhaps  laughed  into  smiling  by  those  about  the  bed- 
side. Most,  however,  find  it  rapturous  and  rejoice  if  it  is  loud 
because  this  betokens  vigor  and  health.  They  know  their 
labor  is  accomplished  aod  that  now  they  are  indeed  real 
mothers.  Some  describe  their  feelings  as  predominantly  pity. 
"  The  poor  little  stranger  will  have  much  to  suffer  in  this 
world  on  the  shores  of  which  it  is  cast  like  a  shipwrecked 
mariner  by  angry  waves."  "  I  knew  the  voice  and  lungs  were 
good  and  that  was  enough  for  me."  "  I  thought  it  was  in 
pain  or  wanted  something  and  so  I  felt  I  must  bestir  myself, 
but  did  not  know  what  to  do."  "  When  I  first  heard  it  cry, 
I  sank  back  feeling  that  so  far  all  was  well."  "  Then  I  could 
pray  with  a  heart  full  to  overflowing  with  gratitude."  "  It 
was  the  sweetest  sound  I  ever  heard  and  I  was  delirious  and 
almost  hysterical  with  joy."  "  I  felt  it  a  call  or  summons  to 
me  to  do  my  whole  duty  by  it,  for  it  needed  me." 

One  of  the  first  and  fondest  desires  of  a  young  mother's 
heart  is  to  see  the  baby  in  her  husband's  arms.  In  former 
ages  this  meant  that  he  acknowledged  it  to  be  his  as  well  as 
hers,  and  not  only  in  ancient  Rome  but  in  many  a  savage  tribe 
it  is  a  formal  act  of  adoption,  signifying  before  witnesses  that 
the  father  owns  his  child.  To  most  mothers  now  it  means  a 
new  and  higher  bond  of  union,  that  they  are  now  not  only  man 
and  wife  but  joint  parents.  Some  mothers  are  somewhat 
fastidious  and  exacting  and  want  him  to  hold  and  perhaps  kiss 
it  first  and  then  to  place  it  in  their  own  arms  as  if  presenting 
it  to  them  as  a  kind  of  boon  for  what  they  have  suffered  and 
accomplished  in  getting  him  an  heir.  It  is  a  moment  when 
85 


530  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

impressions,  even  of  details,  are  indelible  and  our  returns  upon 
this  point  are  minute.  The  husband  is  relieved  of  long,  and 
perhaps  only  with  difficulty  concealed,  anxiety  for  two,  and  if 
the  child  is  lusty  he  has  good  reason  to  be  proud  of  himself  as 
well  as  of  his  wife  and  of  the  new  scion  of  his  house.  He  is 
very  conscious  of  his  new  dignity  and  likes  all  his  friends  to 
know  of  it  despite  the  occasional  chaffing  to  which  he  may  be 
subject.  The  disfavor  with  which  female  friends  may  have 
regarded  him  before  and  during  the  confinement  is  gone  and 
he  shares  in  their  congratulations.  However  deeply  he  may 
sympathize  with  his  w'ife,  he  can  at  first  with  the  best  good 
will  do  but  little  to  assist  in  the  ministrations.  His  visits  to 
the  nursery  are  welcome  if  rightly  timed  and  if  he  deports 
himself  properly,  but  he  must  not  meddle  and  can  only  look 
on.  The  full  realization  of  his  parenthood  now  grows  apace, 
but  the  mother's  sense  of  hers  had  long  antedated  his. 

I  append  in  usually  greatly  condensed  form  typical  cases 
from  my  collection  of  one  hundred,  showing  the  psychic  reac- 
tions of  mothers  to  this  most  tender  and  sacred  of  the  experi- 
ences of  maternity. 

Married  at  twenty ;  written  at  twenty-seven ;  two  children.  For 
five  months  I  had  no  hope  and  cried  hours  at  a  time ;  was  very  angry 
at  my  husband  who  said  we  were  happier  as  it  was,  at  least  for  a  time 
without  the  noise  and  care.  I  said,  "  you  are  happy,  but  I  married 
in  order  to  have  children  and  am  miserable."  I  loved  dolls  as  a 
child  and  was  never  tired  of  caring  for  my  younger  brothers  and 
sisters.  When  I  was  sure  I  was  to  be  a  mother,  I  could  hardly  sleep 
at  first  for  joy,  wanted  to  tell  a  sister  of  seven  and  thought  she  ought 
to  know.  Mother,  and  especially  grandmother,  told  me  all  their 
experience  and  that  of  all  others  they  knew.  My  husband  said  nice 
things,  but  was  unhappy  that  I  could  go  out  less  with  him  and  had 
many  ideas  about  exercise,  diet,  reading,  and  everything.  I  now 
seemed  to  step  out  of  real  life,  wanted  more  seclusion  and  narrowed 
the  circle  of  my  friends.  There  was  some  loneliness.  I  loved  to  sit 
in  the  garden  with  flowers  or  in  the  woods  and  think.  I  began  to 
love  the  child  that  was  to  be  with  all  my  mind,  might,  and  strength. 
I  thought  it  would  be  a  boy  with  golden  hair,  and  gave  him  many  pet 
names,  although  preferring  Henry,  v/hich  was  that  of  my  lost  baby 
brother.  I  knew  there  would  be  pain  and  danger,  but  I  loved  to 
contemplate  both  because  they  would  glorify  my  motherhood  and 
make  it  complete.  My  husband's  sisters  had  died  in  childbirth  and 
my  husband  was  anxious  and  afraid,  but  tried  to  conceal  it.  This  I 
thought  to  be  dislike  to  my  condition  and  was  much  troubled  by  it. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  531 

I  felt  that  I  belonged  entirely  to  my  child  and  so  wanted  to  live  and 
be  well.  I  desired  my  husband  to  love  the  baby  no  less  than  me  and 
feared  he  would  not.  My  life  grew  far  richer,  more  complete;  all 
piy  girlish  much-praised  beauty  was  gone,  but  I  cared  not.  I  pitied 
childless  women  more  and  more.  Once  I  expressed  my  sympathy 
with  a  beautiful  but  childless  society  woman  who  replied  that  she 
could  not  endure  the  noise  and  disorder  of  children,  and  I  have  ever 
since  felt  a  deep-seated  dislike  for  her  and  she  for  me.  I  tried  to 
control  my  moods  and  temper,  to  live  ideally  for  the  child's  sake. 

Married  at  twenty-three ;  written  at  forty ;  five  children.  There 
were  three  years  of  dull,  dreary,  lonely  waiting.  As  soon  as  I  knew, 
I  first  wanted  my  mother;  loved  my  husband  not  less  but  differently 
and  with  a  certain  reserve  as  if  there  had  been  fulfillment  and  now 
there  was  nothing  but  harvest.  I  lost  my  sallowness  and  my  friends 
said  I  had  bloomed  like  a  rose.  I  loved  to  sit  in  my  room  and  was 
for  the  first  time  glad  my  husband  had  his  own  occupation,  his 
friends,  cards,  club,  so  I  could  be  by  myself.  He  was  a  bit  worried 
and  sometimes  scolded  "because  my  regimen  was  not  what  he  thought 
right.  I  took  new  delight  in  the  society  of  elderly  women  and  in 
seeing  how  ardently  most  of  them  shared  my  gladness  and  how  care- 
ful and  full  of  advice  they  were  for  me.  I  felt  I  had  stepped  over 
the  threshold  of  a  nobler  life,  tried  not  to  worry,  was  proud  and 
always  thought  as  I  belonged  to  my  baby  now,  I  must  do  and  be  my 
best.  I  wanted  my  child  to  be  the  brightest,  handsomest,  happiest, 
healthiest  ever,  and  his  name  was  to  be  Felix.  I  hoped  the  worst 
qualities  of  my  husband  would  not  develop  in  my  child  for  then  I 
knew  a  wall  would  arise  between  us  and  I  wanted  to  see  rather  all 
his  best  traits  and  thus  only  should  I  want  more  children.  In  fact, 
I  grew  apart  from  my  husband  and  took  all  my  comfort  more  and 
more  with  my  children  who,  by  dint  of  years  of  care,  have  so  far 
developed  well. 

Married  at  twenty-two;  written  at  thirty-three;  two  children.  I 
rejoiced  greatly  and  grew  indifferent  to  all  but  husband  and  baby, 
but  was  excitable  and  nervous;  loved  my  home,  children,  and  nature 
more;  wanted  all  the  pain,  but  was  weary  waiting  so  long.  Many 
friends  became  indifferent  to  me.  My  husband  was  wild  with  joy. 
He  tried  to  conceal  his  worry  on  account  of  my  delicate  health, 
but  I  slowly  grew  stronger  and  felt  that  he  would  not  let  mc  die. 
I  kept  busy  and  took  on  more  rather  than  less  duties ;  feared  my 
husband  would  love  the  child  more  than  he  did  mc;  felt  impelled  to 
tell  all  my  young  women  friends  much  that  I  was  learning  and  to 
break  through  the  absurd  conventional  restraints  of  false,  mock 
modesty  that  they  might  love  this  state  and  know  more  about  it 
beforehand  than  I  did. 

Married  at  eighteen ;  written  at  twenty- four;  three  children.  I  was 
young  and  was  not  glad,  for  I  thought  all  my  freedom  was  gone ;  I 
had  lived  and  seen  so  little !  I  was  so  ashamed  I  wanted  to  run  away 
from  home  and  husband  to  my  parents;  cried  much;  did  not  want  to 


532  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

move  but  to  lie  on  the  sofa  and  tried  not  to  think ;  hoped  long  that  it 
was  not  true ;  hated  company  and  especially  strangers ;  wanted  to  be 
in  some  far  and  unknown  place ;  felt  sure  I  should  die ;  thought  little 
or  nothing  of  the  child  at  first.  My  marred  sister  pitied  and  con- 
soled me,  but  I  felt  it  was  all  unjust.  I  was  beautiful,  but  inex- 
perienced; had  expected  great  joy  in  getting  out  of  the  convent 
school  into  the  world.  My  husband  was  twenty  years  older,  affec- 
tionate and  talked  much  of  my  duty.  Why  did  my  mother  let  me 
learn  to  dance  and  flirt  only  to  have  to  leave  the  gay  world  after  just 
a  glimpse  of  it?  God  help  me,  I  sometimes  hated  my  dear  husband 
and  could  not  bear  his  presence  in  the  same  room  at  night  for  a  mo- 
ment. He  preached  the  philosophy  of  maternity,  how  needful  it  was 
for  completeness  and  I  abhorred  his  doctrine,  but  now  see  he  was 
right.  I  had  spejls  of  vowing  I  would  never  bear  the  child  for  him, 
but  could  think  of  no  practical  way  of  escape.  I  had  many  caprices, 
not  only  about  foods  but  about  him. 

Married  at  seventeen  years  and  six  months;  written  at  twenty- 
three;  two  children.  Was  distressed  that  I  could  not  go  to  balls, 
theatres,  parties ;  was  cross  at  my  husband,  who  was  free  to  go  about 
the  world  as  usual.  I  wanted  to  run  away  and  hide ;  thought  a  great 
deal  about  my  girlhood,  home,  flowers,  birds,  shopping,  singing,  and 
everything,  and  every  experience  there  kept  going  through  my  mind; 
thought  nothing  about  the  child;  loved  my  old  nurse,  who  cried  with 
me  and  said  I  was  a  poor  martyr;  felt  very  forlorn;  retired  and  rose 
late,  doing  nothing  all  day;  liked  all  sour  and  sweet  things,  and 
feigned  queer  appetites  for  foods  I  never  tasted,  and  did  it  out  of 
spite  or  mischief ;  could  never  sleep  in  the  dark ;  disliked  all  my  old 
gowns,  dresses,  and  got  new  ones;  took  occasion  of  the  new  spirit 
of  kindness  toward  me  to  ask  for  various  and  many  presents,  for  I 
knew  now  I  would  get  about  all  I  wanted.  I  hoped  for  a  girl  so  I 
could  dress  her  up  beautifully  and  take  her  to  balls.  My  chief  fear 
was  that  the  child  would  not  be  beautiful,  for  I  would  hate  it  if  any- 
thing was  the  matter ;  was  always  at  cross  purposes  with  my  husband, 
but  all  is  well  now. 

Married  at  twenty-five;  written  at  thirty-three;  one  child.  Was 
happy  because  my  husband  loved  me  more  and  took  great  pleasure  in 
preparing  clothes  and  things ;  narrowed  my  circle  to  those  nearest  and 
dearest;  could  not  bear  the  presents  of  anyone  of  whose  good  will 
and  love  I  was  not  certain ;  wanted  and  prayed  for  a  girl  to  be  a 
matron  and  bear  children  for  my  fatherland  (Poland)  ;  named  her 
in  advance  Victoria,  and  hoped  she  might  be  a  Jeanne  d'Arc  and 
free  us  from  Russia.  It  was  a  boy.  Among  other  things,  prayed 
that  if  I  died,  the  child  might  die  with  me,  and  not  be  an  orphan; 
was  tranquil  and  content,  always  trying  to  do  nothing  not  best  for 
it ;  wished  I  knew  more ;  felt  sure  it  would  be  a  superior  child  and 
felt  myself  superior  to  other  women.  It  was  hard  to  adjust  to  con- 
ventional modesty  which  forbids  us  to  talk  freely  and  openly  about 
all  such  things  about  which  our  whole  life  and  mind  centers.     The 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  533 

first  movements  were  a  great  event  which  I  shall  never  forget.  I 
knew  then  it  would  be  strong  and  vigorous,  and  so  got  a  bit  ac- 
quainted with  its  disposition  beforehand. 

Married  at  twenty-eight;  written  at  thirty;  one  child.  Glad  but 
feared  I  should  die,  and  my  husband's  sensitive  nature  constantly 
troubled  me ;  feared  he  would  not  realize  why  I  must  turn  away  from 
him  for  rest.  I  looked  younger  and  fresher  in  color  than  ever.  I 
longed  for  my  own  room  at  home,  and  to  have  my  child  there  alone. 
I  had  never  known  my  father,  and  perhaps  for  this  reason  wanted  my 
child  all  to  myself.  I  gave  her  long  in  advance  the  name  she  now 
bears;  tried  to  live  hygienically ;  thought  my  husband  very  egotistic; 
feared  my  child  would  love  me  less  because  it  must  love  him  too.  I 
was  a  pianist  and  taught  before  marriage  and  longed  to  give  my 
daughter  lessons.  My  husband  was  so  disturbed  as  my  term  ap- 
proached that  he  fell  ill.  He  loved  me  too  much.  I  feared  his  nerves 
might  be  inherited,  and  so  liked  him  less.  Possibly  I  took  more 
care  of  myself  because  I  knew  he  loved  me,  but  I  did  not  want  him 
around  at  all. 

Married  at  twenty-two;  written  at  thirty;  three  children.  Full  of 
mingled  hope,  shyness,  and  shame ;  was  glad  I  had  such  U  nice  home 
and  room.  My  husband  was  always  getting  and  doing  things,  but 
seemed  a  little  conscious  and  almost  ashamed  of  it,  as  though  his  ten- 
derness were  unmanly.  Especially  in  the  presence  of  my  mother  he 
was  sometimes  disagreeable,  I  thought,  in  order  to  hide  his  feelings. 
I  believe  I  would  rather  have  died  than  to  have  my  child  die,  but  I 
never  before  so  wanted  to  live  so  as  to  care  for  it.  It  was  very  real 
to  me  and  had  many  pet  names.  I  was  much  interested  in  my  own 
new  states  of  mind;  felt  exalted  above  others;  condemned  the  cus- 
toms of  society  that  prevent  women  from  keeping  their  own  primitive 
souls.  The  first  of  the  manifestations  of  new  life  excited  me,  but 
the  prenatal  movements  gave  me  quite  an  insight  into  the  nature  of 
the  child. 

Married  at  twenty-three ;  written  at  twenty-nine ;  three  children. 
Had  always  greatly  loved  little  children  and  was  glad ;  was  very  tired 
of  caresses,  and  loved  to  be  alone  more  and  more,  and  was  inclined 
to  melancholy,  would  go  to  the  public  garden  and  sit  by  the  hour  to 
watch  children.  It  was  to  be  Angelina;  all  must  suffer,  and  so  I 
was  resigned  and  resolved  not  to  take  any  narcotics,  but  wanted  to 
bear  all  the  mother's  burden  and  should  love  it  more  for  the  suffer- 
ing and  it  would  love  me  the  more  for  it.  My  sister  was  a  spinster, 
and  thought  I  should  shut  myself  out  of  society,  and  called  mv  condi- 
tion "  indecent  and  disgusting,"  and  the  younger  sister,  aged  nine- 
teen, pretended  not  to  understand,  but  was  red  and  annoyed  at  my 
presence.  Later  she  told  me  and  was  much  ashamed.  .My  husband 
grew  very  serious  and  tried  to  pet  me  in  new  ways,  but  I  was  un- 
grateful. I  grew  ambitious  to  have  as  many  children  as  my  mother 
(nine),  but  that  was  foolish  for  me,  we  were  so  poor  and  all  would 
have  to  work  harder  and  we  must  scrimp  and  pinch  still  more.     I 


534  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

know,  however,  that  our  dear  country  needs  more  native-born  peo- 
ple, and  should  not  be  so  dependent  for  its  increase  upon  immigrants. 

Married  at  twenty-one;  written  at  fifty;  five  children.  It  was 
with  great  grief  that  I  realized  that  I  loved  my  firstborn  more  before 
birth  than  I  did  for  some  weeks  after.  The  first  aspect  disillusioned 
me,  for  I  had  high  ideals.  I  have  had  no  such  experience  with  my 
later  children.  My  first  love  toward  the  child  awoke  suddenly  at  its 
first  movement  when  it  came  to  be  a  reality  for  me.  The  movements 
often  pained  me,  yet  I  loved  to  feel  them,  to  caress  the  unborn  child, 
and  think  how  tenderly  I  would  care  for  it  after  its  birth.  I  am  not 
sure  whether  painlessness  at  birth  would  be  best,  but  of  course  in  a 
way  I  would  prefer  it,  though  not  at  the  expense  of  the  child,  nor 
would  I  lose  harmony  with  the  experience  of  all  mothers  or  with 
full  maternity.  My  husband  would  and  wanted  to  lighten  all  my 
burdens,  but  I  had  to  work  to  keep  myself  occupied  and  well.  He 
had  a  look  and  mien  of  the  sinner  who  is  repentant  and  wanted  to 
do  penance,  and  this  made  me  love  him  more.  I  felt  I  must  smoke 
cigars,  and  in  the  fifth  month  I  did,  and  have  ever  since  loved  cig- 
arettes. I  was  so  busy  that  I  had  no  time  to  read  the  literature  on 
maternity  which  my  friends  gave  me  and  literature  and  art  which 
I  had  loved  before,  no  longer  existed  for  me.  My  husband  seemed 
fastidious,  and  later  began  discords  about  our  plans  for  the  children, 
which  increased  as  they  grew  up  and  ceased  only  when  each  had  de- 
veloped his  own  way,  which  was  in  every  respect  different  from  the 
wishes  and  designs  of  either  of  us.  I  was  full  of  ambition  that  my 
children  should  be  the  best  in  the  world.  Childless  women  seemed 
so  stupid  and  inferior  that  I  almost  thought  that  all  ought  to  have 
children  sans  peche  et  sans  mari,  but  this  is  absurd  and  wicked  and 
perhaps  it  is  almost  an  insane  thought.  My  first  experiences  of  wed- 
lock were  a  great  shock  to  my  modesty,  and  so  again  were  nature's 
arrangements  for  gestation,  but  I  know  now  how  beautiful  all  is. 

Married  at  twenty-four ;  written  at  thirty ;  two  children.  Was  sim- 
ply cross  at  the  prospect  of  the  expense.  I  was  very  irritable,  the  more 
so  that  I  was  not  understood ;  was  very  ill,  hungry,  and  overworked ; 
longed  and  pined  for  quiet,  rest,  but  could  get  neither;  wanted  a 
girl,  because  it  is  harder  to  raise  a  son.  My  husband  smoked  in  our 
rooms,  but  tobacco  as  well  as  perfumery  made  me  sick.  I  just  had 
to  buy  and  once  to  steal  apples  to  eat  on  the  street.  Pregnancy  does 
not  elevate,  but  it  degrades  and  drags  us  down,  but  children  must  be 
born.  I  could  not  help  feeling  resentment  toward  my  husband,  and 
quarrels  were  frequent.  No  doubt  my  disposition  did  afifect  my  child 
unfavorably. 

Married  at  nineteen;  written  at  twenty- four;  three  children.  Glad, 
but  dreaded  loss  of  freedom ;  feared  I  did  not  know  enough  to  be  a 
good  mother ;  had  never  seen  much  of  children ;  was  pleased  that  my 
husband  revered  me  like  a  saint;  often  rose,  sobbed  hysterically  about 
the  house  at  night.  For  my  first  child,  wanted  to  be  out-of-doors,  but 
for  my  last  preferred  my  own  room  where  I  had  loved  to  arrange 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  535 

bright  curtains,  paper  flowers,  have  sunshine,  etc. ;  had  various  pets, 
but  cared  less  for  these  now;  never  thought  about  my  children  be- 
fore they  were  born.  Noise,  i.  e.,  that  of  the  town,  was  very  dis- 
tressing; shunned  all  strangers,  abhorred  milk,  wine,  pork,  soup,  and 
cheese,  but  had  no  cravings.  "  In  heart,  soul,  thought,  and  endeavor, 
I  am  better  and  nobler  and  more  womanly,  and  but  for  false  educa- 
tion all  true  women  would  know  that  their  really  supreme  end  and 
aim  in  life  was  to  be  mothers." 

Married  at  twenty ;  written  at  twenty-six ;  four  children.  Was  a 
little  repelled  by  my  husband's  new  tenderness,  which  I  at  first  did  not 
understand.  I  thought  my  first  would  be  a  boy,  and  named  it  long 
in  advance  after  a  national  hero.  I  developed  a  new  dislike  of  young 
flirting  girls,  who  seemed  to  me  silly  and  giddy;  was  grateful  that 
my  husband  showed  no  anxiety  even  if  he  felt  it.  I  was  an  orphan 
and  reveled  now  in  the  sense  of  more  truly  belonging  to  some  one,  and 
at  the  prospect  of  having  for  the  first  time  some  one  to  cherish  and 
who  belonged  to  and  depended  upon  me.  I  became  less  egotistic, 
capricious,  humble,  devout,  and  realized  that  there  are  others.  These 
months,  indeed,  cured  many  of  the  worst  faults  of  my  girlish  disposi- 
tion. 

Married  at  twenty-one;  written  at  twenty-three;  one  child;  was 
immensely  ashamed  and  wanted  to  hide ;  was  constantly  sick,  unhappy, 
ugly  in  form,  face,  and  temper.  My  husband,  I  thought,  cares  only 
for  the  baby  and  not  for  me.  Hence,  I  was  extremely  sour.  At  first 
I  felt  in  a  nasty  way  that  I  did  not  own  myself,  but  was  a  slave.  All 
my  husband  brought  to  or  did  for  me  was  very  displeasing.  I  hated 
every  allusion  to  my  condition ;  felt  that  I  was  a  creature  kept  and 
held  for  bearing  children  and  that  all  that  pertained  and  was  done 
for  me  was  in  fact  done  for  the  child.  It  would  be  a  boy,  either  a 
poet,  painter,  or  singer;  I  would  travel  with  it  far  away  from  them 
all.  It  should  be  mine  and  not  theirs.  "  Why  are  we  women  not  told 
of  the  truth?  How  dreadful  are  the  first  days  of  married  life,  and 
why  does  the  first  child  come  as  a  stranger  that  we  do  not  know  how 
to  take  care  of?  It  is  this  that  makes  marriage  so  often  a  great  dis- 
appointment." 

Married  at  twenty-three ;  written  at  twenty-seven ;  two  children. 
Felt  that  all  I  imagined  and  thought  influenced  the  child,  and  so  lived 
for  it ;  was  especially  shy  toward  my  husband,  who  became  simply  a 
friend;  lost  forever  and  rather  suddenly  all  my  usual  gaycty  as  a  girl 
and  became  serious,  fussed  much  with  my  room  by  way  of  prepara- 
tion ;  thought  of  the  child  as  my  oVn,  and  called  it  deary,  sonny,  etc., 
in  my  musings  and  soliloquies;  tried  to  keep  well  for  its  sake;  felt 
less  my  own,  and  it  was  a  sweet  feeling.  I  read  religious  books  and 
prayed  much,  and  never  felt  so  near  to  heaven  and  God.  I  hoped 
to  he  chastened  anfl  better  and  more  fit  to  live  and  die  for  Jesus; 
thought  my  child  whatever  it  is  will  be  an  "  angel  to  me."  but  did 
not  think  or  care  so  much  how  it  would  compare  with  others.  My 
mother  had  taught  mc,  so  that  I  married  feeling  it  my  chief  duty  to 


536  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

bear  and  train  children.  The  more  of  us  there  are  in  the  country, 
the  greater  the  country,  so  that  we  have  a  holy  mission.  For  this 
destiny  every  girl  should  be  prepared. 

Married  at  twenty-five;  written  at  thirty-four;  five  children.  Felt 
proud;  was  happiest  with  the  later  children.  We  are  very  poor,  but 
I  welcomed  the  added  labor  and  care.  My  first  child  especially  was 
a  very  real  being  to  me  almost  from  the  start;  was  loved  most,  but 
there  would  be  other  children.  I  longed  constantly  for  it  to  be  large, 
sound,  well  built.  My  husband  was  needlessly  anxious  about  every 
change  of  my  moods.  He  should  have  been  better  instructed,  and 
have  allowed  me  to  feel  any  way  I  wanted.  I  expected  he  would 
love  the  child  more  than  me,  but  this  made  me  happy,  for  it  was  ours. 

Married  at  thirty-one ;  written  at  thirty-four ;  two  children.  After 
years  of  waiting  I  was  inexpressibly  rejoiced,  though  miserably  ill 
throughout,  and  my  husband,  who  had  been  unhappy,  became  far 
dearer  and  closer  to  me  again.  I  loved  home,  garden,  yet  better, 
because  all  these  would  mean  so  much  to  my  child.  I  would  bear 
any  pain  and  even  die  for  such  a  prize.  I  felt  a  double  responsibility 
and  built  castles  for  the  future.  I  saw  many  beautiful  pictures,  and 
enjoyed  them,  too;  realized  how  the  Holy  Mother  felt,  and  my 
thoughts  fluctuated,  now  fearing  and  now  thinking  that  every  possi- 
ble excellence  would  come. 

Married  at  twenty;  written  at  forty-one;  six  children.  As  a  child 
I  always  wanted  and  expected  a  baby  of  my  own,  and  when,  after  six 
months  of  marriage,  there  was  no  sign,  I  thought  of  adopting  one. 
My  chief  fears  were  with  the  first.  When  I  knew,  I  wanted  to  tell 
everybody,  and  the  joy  of  making  and  handling  the  garments  was 
exquisite.  During  the  fourth  and  fifth  months  I  cried  at  trifles,  but 
in  the  last  few  months  was  already  happy,  for  the  movements  gave 
me  an  exquisite  sense  of  companionship,  and  I  could  hardly  wait  to 
clasp  it.  When  the  later  children  were  coming,  I  took  the  first  into 
my  confidence,  and  they  felt  the  keenest  yet  secretly  sacred  pleasure 
of  feeling  it  under  my  heart.  This  brought  us  all  nearer  together. 
I  shrank  from  those  of  my  friends  who  think  this  practice  wrong. 
I  wanted  all  things  to  be  as  natural  as  possible,  and  welcomed  the 
pain.  I  did  not  want  to  die  rather  than  the  child,  for  there  were  pos- 
sibilities of  others.  In  everything  I  belonged  to  that  baby,  and  noth- 
ing could  disturb  my  serenity.  I  longed  above  all  else  to  be  natural. 
It  is  a  kind  provision  of  nature  that  childless  women  do  not  know 
what  they  miss.    I  could  usually  tell  the  sex  by  the  movements. 

My  long  doll  play  predisposed  me  to  long  for  real  children,  and 
my  study  of  medicine  strengthened  this  desire,  and  gave  me  confi- 
dence, for  I  knew  I  was  stronger  and  better  in  health  than  the  aver- 
age. It  made  me  appreciate,  understand,  love,  and  turn  to  my  mother 
because  I  could  realize  what  she  had  been  and  done  for  me.  I  be- 
came more  unselfish  and  realized  the  great  law  of  sacrifice.  I  was 
better  in  health,  welfare,  and  my  habitual  headaches  vanished.  My 
spirits  were  sky  high.     I  did  not  avoid  publicity,  but  rather  courted 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  S37 

it,  being  proud  of  my  condition,  and  wanting  all  to  know  it.  The 
child  was  a  very  real  personality.  I  had  two  names  in  advance,  that 
of  his  paternal  grandfather,  and  the  other  a  secret  pet  name.  I 
thought  much  about  my  ancestry  and  that  of  my  husband,  for  I  was 
interested  in  heredity;  was  more  charitable  and  humanistic.  If  my 
husband  was  absorbed,  I  realized  that  he  felt  the  added  responsibility, 
care,  and  expense  of  what  was  coming.  In  the  middle  of  my  term, 
all  my  senses,  especially  smell  and  taste,  were  more  acute  and  saliva- 
tion was  increased.  This  passed  after  the  fourth  month.  I  feared 
my  husband  would  think  I  was  going  to  love  the  child  more  than  I 
did  him.  My  states  of  mind  were  so  new  they  became  very  inter- 
esting to  me,  and  they  seemed  so  far  superior  to  those  of  old  that  I 
seemed  to  be  a  new  personality.  Conventionality  prevents  most  from 
enjoying  to  the  full,  as  they  should,  this  new  condition,  and  making 
it  a  common  topic  of  friendly  intercourse. 

Was  fearful  I  was  not  capable  of  performing  the  full  physiolog- 
ical function  of  molding  a  new  life  perfectly.  I  lived  more  in  my 
affections,  and  wanted  to  widen  out  and  not  to  contract  my  circle 
of  acquaintance,  wishing  all  to  see  and  know.  Save  only  to  those 
who  pitied  me  I  felt  that  everything  pertaining  to  my  state  was  too 
sacred  for  words.  A  real  personality  was  the  chief  thing,  although 
I  thought  I  could  understand  better  and  do  more  for  a  girl.  I  could 
be  content  anywhere.  My  husband's  state  of  mind  controlled  my  own 
more  than  formerly.  I  tried  to  think  and  feel  ideally,  for  I  loved 
this  condition,  and  found  it  extremely  interesting  and  pleasant,  and 
instead  of  feeling  resentment  toward  him  felt  more  gratitude. 

I  turned  more  to  my  husband,  and  from  nearly  all  others;  was 
greatly  depressed,  and  thought  a  great  deal  about  suicide,  and  the 
different  methods.  I  left  off  corsets,  reconstructed  my  wearing 
apparel  and  my  sleeping  and  eating  habits,  and  allowed  myself  cer- 
tain indulgences  to  which  I  did  not  usually  feel  myself  privileged,  and 
thought  even  my  own  standards  might  now  be  let  down.  I  realized 
painfully  that  the  experiences  of  confinement  were  a  fatality  not  to 
be  evaded,  and  toward  the  latter  part  my  feelings  were  rather  those 
of  triumph  and  exaltation.  Some  of  my  friends  have  had  intense 
aversion  toward  both  husband  and  child,  but  this  feeling  usually 
passes  away  after  birth. 

Dr.  D.  H.  Sherman  ^  says  that  the  p.xcliatrist  can  do  far 
more  than  has  usually  been  thought  in  ai(hng'  tlie  premature 
infant  to  live.  Sul)cutaneous  fat  is  supplied  (iurincf  the  last 
month  or  two  of  g^estation  so  that  in  the  premature  child  this 
is  lacking^  and  the  heat  radiation  is  very  j^reat.  Moreover,  it 
lacks  power   to   produce  heat   lx'cau.se  of  its  imperfectly  e.\- 

'  The  Premature  Infant.    N.  Y.  Med.  Jour.,  Aug.  5,  1905,  pp.  272-276. 


538  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

panded  lungs,  its  feeble  metabolism,  its  inability  to  exercise, 
and  because  the  liver  is  changing  its  function  of  blood  forma- 
tion to  the  manufacture  of  bile.  During  the  last  month  of 
pregnancy  iron  is  being  stored  up  in  excess  to  prepare  for  the 
small  quantity  of  it  to  be  supplied  in  breast  milk  later.  During 
the  last  week  or  two  of  intra-uterine  life,  the  salts  of  potassium 
are  being  rapidly  stored  up.  So  the  digestive  ferments  are  less 
effective  than  in  full  term.  Although  pepsin  is  present  in  the 
stomach,  pancreatin  and  perhaps  trypsin  are  active.  Great  are 
the  dangers  of  atelectasis,  and  the  partially  developed  alveoli 
are  badly  supported.  The  foramen  of  the  heart  is  too  wide 
open  and  there  is  often  cyanosis.  Very  often  the  infant  is  too 
weak  to  draw  food  from  either  breast  or  bottle.  Premature 
infants  seem  more  liable  to  infections,  perhaps  especially 
through  the  umbilicus.  It  is  possible,  however,  to  develop  a 
premature  child  about  as  well  as  one  born  at  the  full  term,  al- 
though the  old  idea  that  a  seven  months'  infant  is  more  apt 
to  live  than  an  eight  months'  child  has  no  basis  in  fact.  The 
cautions  to  be  observed  are  very  many  and  great.  It  is  not, 
however,  necessary,  as  is  so  often  thought,  that  the  age  of  the 
wetnurse  should  be  related  to  that  of  the  child.  By  great  care 
in  feeding,  bathing,  regulating  temperature  of  the  incubator, 
children  weighing  three  pounds  or  even  less  have  developed 
into  vigorous  and  healthful  life. 

Nearly  every  State  has  enacted  stringent  laws  against 
infanticide  and  foeticide  as  well  as  laws  enforcing  the  father's 
responsibility  for  his  illegitimate  offspring.  The  father  in- 
stinct conscious  of  its  parental  duty  is  forcibly  expressed  by 
the  penalties  provided  for  those  who  desert  their  families.  In 
forty-eight  out  of  fifty-three  American  States  and  territories, 
including  Alaska,  Porto  Rico,  and  Hawaii,  action  can  be 
brought  under  criminal  law  for  desertion  and  nonsupport  of 
family.  In  the  remainder,  there  is  (January,  1907)  no  legis- 
lation upon  the  subject.  The  term  of  imprisonment  for  this 
crime  ranges  from  ten  days  to  three  years  and  the  fines  from 
ten  to  one  hundred  dollars.  Desertion  of  children  with  intent 
to  abandon  them  utterly  is  punished  in  twenty-six  States  by 
fines  ranging  from  $250  to  $1,000  and  imprisonment  from  six 
months  to  two  years. 

Interesting  statistics  have  been  collected  by  the  Charity 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF   SEX  539 

Organization  Society  of  New  York  which  show  that  out  of 
323  cases  of  family  desertion  with  definite  cause  assignable, 
100  of  the  men  left  just  before  or  after  the  birth  of  a  child. 
Very  often  the  deserting  father  came  back  later  to  wife  and 
children  until  this  cause  of  desertion  occurred  again.  In  these 
cases,  the  conjugal  was  stronger  than  the  parental  feeling,  or 
attachment  to  the  woman  as  wife  stronger  than  the  feeling  for 
the  child,  since  the  former  caused  him  to  come  home  again 
after  the  desertion,  and  the  latter  caused  him  to  leave  again. 
Such  giiilty  fathers  are  absolutely  lacking  not  only  in  all  sense 
of  paternal  instinct  but  in  their  obligation  to  society.  Cross- 
ing a  State  line  should  not  put  them  out  of  the  powers  of 
the  law. 

In  nearly  every  State  and  practically  throughout  the  world 
legislation  is  wholly  in  the  hands  of  men.  About  13,000,000 
men  in  the  United  States  twenty  years  of  age  and  over  are 
fathers  or  about  twice  as  many  as  are  celibate.  In  forty-two 
States  the  father  has  a  legal  control  of  the  children.  This  is 
a  survival  of  the  custom  which  dominated  primitive  folk  and 
was  legalized  in  Greece  and  in  Rome  where  even  the  power  of 
life  and  death  was  vested  in  him.  Three  States  fix  the  age 
of  ten,  sixteen  that  of  twelve;  sixteen  is  a  common  age  and 
two  States  fix  it  at  twenty-one,  but  in  general  the  age  limit  is 
fourteen.  In  six  States  there  is  no  limit  to  the  number  of 
hours  in  which  minors  may  be  kept  at  work.  Eleven  of  the 
States  that  have  provided  child-labor  laws  have  not  (1907) 
reenforced  or  supplemented  them  with  the  laws  of  compelling 
school  attendance.  In  eight  of  our  States,  according  to  Roark, 
there  is  no  age  limit  for  the  protection  of  children  against 
the  greed  of  parents  and  employers.  But  we  here  transcend 
even  the  larger  pedagogy  of  sex. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION 

The  present  fearful  waste  of  pubescents — Very  few  children  have  intel- 
lectual interests — Industrial  training  in  the  old  guilds — Arts  and 
crafts  movement — Causes  of  the  decline  of  the  apprentice  system — 
Its  relation  to  labor  unions — Description  of  a  score  of  new  types  of 
industrial  schools — The  Munich  system  described  and  criticised — 
Failure  of  manual  training — A  proposed  substitute  for  it — Making  of 
toys  and  simple  scientific  apparatus — Correlation  of  industrial  train- 
ing with  race  history — How  the  former  should  stimulate  reading — 
Relations  to  puppet  theaters — Interest  in  firearms,  tops,  kites,  and 
airships — Vocational  bureaus — Educational  advantage  of  utility — Our 
system  undemocratic — Stress  on  industrial  environment — Need  of  a 
•  book  on  the  leading  trades — Our  industrial  life  imperiled — Reduction 
of  natural  resources — A  substitute  for  military  training — Commercial 
education — Business  schools  and  colleges — Trade,  general;  skilled 
labor,  special — Education  for  the  former — Nature  study  and  agri- 
culture— Industrial  education  of  girls^Difficulties  of  the  problem — 
New  departures — Domestic  versus  trade  training — The  German 
kitchen,  clothes,  children,  church. 

Next  to  moral  education,  to  which  the  last  few  chapters 
have  been  devoted,  industrial  training  is  by  general  consent 
the  greatest  and  most  urgent  problem  confronting  the  Ameri- 
can people.  Its  dimensions,  complexities,  and  difficulties  are 
even  greater  than  those  most  interested  have  yet  begun  to 
realize.  The  vast  majority  of  American  children  now  leave 
school  near  the  dawn  of  adolescence,  just  when  the  soul  is 
most  docile  and  eager,  and  when  education  in  all  the  past  has 
begun.  It  is  precisely  this  nascent  and  most  educable  period 
that  under  present  conditions  we  fail  to  reach,  and  until  we  do 
so,  our  entire  scheme  is  hollow  at  heart.  The  decay  of  the 
apprentice  system,  the  general  uselessness  of  boys  and  girls 
under  new  city  conditions,  the  specialization  of  industry,  the 
utter  inadequacy  of  the  manual  training  movement  of  the  last 
quarter  century  to  cope  with  the  present  situation,  the  fact 

S40 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  541 

that  the  best  provisions  here  and  there  made  reach  but  an  in- 
significant fraction  of  the  children  needing  them — make  a 
grave  situation  involving  inestimable  moral  and  economic 
waste,  the  realization  of  which  now  threatens  to  seriously 
abate  the  faith  of  our  people  in  education,  upon  which  the  en- 
tire scheme  of  public  instruction  rests.  Our  land  and  our  age 
are  industrial.  The  prime  condition  of  citizenship  and  of  self- 
respect  is  the  power  of  self-support.  From  all  this  our  school 
system  as  a  whole  has  held  itself  aloof.  Happily,  however, 
a  great  awakening  has  begun.     Let  us  first  consider : 

The  Present  Tragic  Wastage  of  Pubescents. — This  most 
educable  stage  of  life  is  now  most  neglected.  This  means 
decay  at  the  very  heart  of  our  educational  system,  the  very  best 
test  of  which  is  what  it  does  with  that  enthusiasm  of  youth 
which  is  nature's  best  gift  to  man.  What  is  the  situation? 
There  are  now  some  18,000,000  school  children  in  the  United 
States.  If  they  were  placed  in  a  compact  line,  giving  a  foot 
to  each,  Schneider  ^  computes  they  would  extend  from  the 
northeast  of  Maine  in  a  solid  row  to  the  west  coast  of  South- 
ern California,  i.  e.,  from  sea  to  sea  on  the  longest  diameter 
of  the  country.  Those  who  pass  through  the  high  school 
would  reach  only  across  California.  Some  17,000,000 
drop  out  of  school  as  soon  as  or  before  the  law  permits. 
Ayres  ^  studied  the  enrollment  of  886  cities  of  8,000  popula- 
tion or  more,  based  on  the  report  of  the  Commissioner  of 
Education  for  1907,  and  finds  that  of  1,000  pupils  entering  the 
first  grade,  462  will  enter  the  sixth,  189  the  high  school,  from 
which  152  will  graduate.  Thorndike  ^  finds  that  very  few 
stop  before  12,  but  that  of  100  in  the  school  at  9  years  of  age, 
9  leave  at  twelve,  18  at  13,  23  at  14,  17  at  15,  14  at  16,  8  at 
17.  Most  drop  out  from  13  to  15  feeling"  that  the  school  is 
not  vital.  The  Commissioner  of  Education  rej)orts  in  1908 
that  the  high  school  enrollment  was  4.6  per  cent  of  the  total 
public   and   private   school   enrollment ;   that   the   number   of 

'  Hermann  Schneider.  Partial  Time  Trade  Schools,  .\nnals  of  .\mcr.  Acad, 
of  Pol.  and  See.  Sci.,  190Q,  vol.  ^i,  pp.  50-55. 

'  Ayres,  Leonard  P.  Laggards  in  Our  Schools.  See  p.  13.  N.  Y.,  Charities 
Publication  Committee,  iQog.     236  p. 

*  Thomdike,  F^ward  L.  The  Elimination  of  Pupils  from  School.  Washington, 
Gov't  Print.  Office,  1908.    63  p. 


542  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

students  in  public  universities  and  colleges,  professional  and 
normal  schools  was  f  of  i  per  cent  of  the  total  enrollment 
of  the  public  school,  including  higher  educational  institutions ; 
and  that  the  enrollment  in  public  and  private  universities,  col- 
leges, professional  and  normal  schools  was  1.5  per  cent  of  the 
total  enrollment  of  public  and  private  schools.^  D.  E.  Haw- 
kins ^  estimated  that  in  the  public  schools  of  the  United  States 
each  pupil  attended  on  the  average  5^  years  of  200  days  each. 
The  average  compulsory  attendance  found,  for  all  states  hav- 
ing compulsory  laws,  is  ^.2  years  of  from  8  to  40  weeks  each. 
Of  the  total  public  school  population  from  5  to  18,  only  70 
per  cent  are  enrolled,  including  private  schools.  The  average 
daily  attendance  is  only  about  \  of  the  public  school  popula- 
tion. Another  estimate  is  that  about  \  of  the  public  school 
children  of  our  cities  leave  school  by  or  before  the  close  of 
the  fifth  grade. 

Several  more  special  censuses  confirm  and  illustrate  the  con- 
clusion that  the  percentage  of  withdrawal  is  very  great.  Kingsbury 
reports  for  the  Massachusetts  Commission  that  25,000  children  be- 
tween 14  and  16  in  the  state  are  not  in  school  arid  are  either  idle  or 
at  work.  Of  these  \  only  had  completed  the  grammar  grades,  \ 
had  finished  the  seventh,  and  |  the  sixth  grade.  Of  8,567  children 
entering  the  first  grades  of  the  Cincinnati  public  schools,  only  447 
were  left  at  the  age  of  14,  when  the  law  permits  them  to  leave, 
C.  S.  Howe,  of  the  Case  School  in  Cleveland,  says  that  80  per  cent 
of  the  boys  of  the  grammar  school  do  not  finish  the  eighth  grade, 
and  that  most  of  them  enter  the  ranks  of  unskilled  labor,  and  esti- 
mates that  about  I  per  cent  of  the  enrollment  of  the  elementary 
schools  graduate  from  the  high  school.^  Of  1,650  pupils  entering  the 
first  grade  of  the  public  school  in  Albany,  500  reach  the  eighth 
grade  and  150  the  twelfth.  Superintendent  Bogan,  of  the  Chicago 
Vocational  School,  states  that  the  Board  of  Education  found  that 
nearly  3,300  boys  between  the  ages  of  14  and  16  were  neither  work- 
ing nor  attending  school.*  F.  A.  Vanderlip  says  there  are  10,000,000 
youth  from  15  to  20  in  the  United  States,  and  that  7,500,000  of  them 
are  not  in  school,  and  so  urges  continuation  schools.  The  educa- 
tional department  of  the  international  committee  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
concludes  that  only  about  5  per  cent  of  the   13,000,000  young  men 

*  U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Education,  Report,  1908,  vol.  i,  p.  27. 

^  Report  of  the  Syracuse  Chamber  of  Commerce,  Jan.,  1908.     p.  23. 
'  Western  Journal  of  Education,  vol.  13,  p.  266.    See  also  E.  E.  Brown:  Govern- 
ment by  Influence.    N.  Y.,  Longmans,  1910.    245  p.    See  p.  158  ei  seq. 

*  Western  Journal  of  Education,  vol.  13,  p.  266. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  543 

of  the  country  from  21  to  35  had  received  in  school  any  preparation 
for  their  occupation ;  that  only  about  8  per  cent  of  those  who 
graduated  from  the  elementary  schools  entered  the  professions  or 
commercial  life,  while  most  of  the  remaining  92  per  cent  took  up 
some  form  of  industry  for  a  living.  In  England  over  2,000,000,  and 
in  Massachusetts  over  40,000  between  the  ages  of  12  and  17  have 
no  educational  care.^  The  boy  who  goes  to  work  attends  school 
on  the  average  5  years,  while  those  who  enter  the  professions  spend 
from  16  to  20  years  in  preparation.  Our  public  schools  give  great 
attention  to  the  2,000,000  professional  people,  and  none  worthy  the 
name  to  the  30,000,000  people  engaged  in  industrial  pursuits.-  It  is 
believed  that  about  4,000,000  young  people  now  leave  school  in  this 
country  to  enter  industry  each  year  with  no  preparation  for  their 
work.  More  do  so  in  textile  than  in  commercial  centers.  J.  W. 
Van  Cleave  (President  of  the  National  Association  of  Manufactur- 
ers) estimates,  as  to  the  general  distribution  of  occupations,  that  of 
the  breadwinners  of  the  United  States,  36  per  cent  are  in  agriculture 
and  fisheries,  24  per  cent  in  manufacturing  and  mining,  16  per  cent 
in  trade  and  commerce,  and  4  per  cent  in  the  professions  and  the 
public  service.  Another  estimate  is  that  of  those  who  work  for  pay 
in  this  country  :  85  per  cent  are  in  industry  and  commerce,  and  our 
schools  give  practical  preparation  for  about  3.5  per  cent.  In  1895 
it  was  calculated  that  only  about  i  in  60  entering  these  employments 
receives  anything  like  adequate  vocational  training.  E.  S.  Barney  * 
estimates  that  in  New  York  City  about  37  per  cent  of  the  adult  male 
population  are  engaged  in  mechanical  work,  37  per  cent  in  business, 
91  per  cent  in  domestic  service,  and  5  per  cent  in  the  learned  pro- 
fessions. 

Such  statistics  based  on  data  computed  by  various  meth- 
ods, and  more  that  could  be  cited,  reveal  the  general  situa- 
tion. We  must  face  these  facts  and  draw  the  lessons  which 
they  teach.     They  are  : 

First,  that  we  have  paid  relatively  vastly  too  much  atten- 
ion  to  the  few  who  go  on  to  secondary  and  higher  technical, 
liberal  and  professional  education,  and  have  wastefuUy,  not  to 
say  disgracefully,  neglected  the  needs  of  the  masses  of  our 
children  and  youth.  If  we  have  a  good  ladder  up  which  the 
child  of  the  gutter  or  of  the  Ghetto  can  climb  to  tlio  univer- 
sity, our  system  is  nevertheless  radically  undemocratic,  in  that 

"  Sadler,  M.  E.    Eng.  Educational  Review,  Feb.,  1905. 

'  Herter,  S.  L.  Carpentry  and  Building,  vol.  30,  p.  94.  Sec  also  O.  I.  Wood- 
ley.    Industrial  Education.    N.  E.  A.  Report,  1909,  pp.  312-316. 

'  Barney,  K.  S.  Intermediate  Industrial  Schools  as  a  Requirement  of  a  Program 
of  Industrial  Education.    N.  E.  A.  Report,  1908,  pp.  793-798. 


544  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

we  give  too  exclusive  care  to  those  on  the  upper  rungs  and 
are  so  indifferent  to  the  great  majority  who  would  drop  off 
from  the  lower  ones.  There  is  a  chasm  between  our  educa- 
tional and  our  industrial  system.  J.  F.  McGlory  (President 
of  the  Consolidated  Car  Heating  Company  of  Albany)  found 
that  of  1 02  workmen,  many  of  whom  were  mechanics  of  high 
intelligence,  not  one  had  attended  the  high  school,  and  only 
about  7  per  cent  had  completed  the  grammar  school.  Other 
manufacturers  whom  he  consulted  reported  that  they  thought 
these  statistics  about  right  for  their  employees.  Thus  the  high 
school  does  not  reach  even  the  skilled  laborers. 

Second,  the  grades  are  too  archaic  and  traditionally  ob- 
livious of  modern  life.  They  stand  under  the  dominion  of 
the  past,  and  are  isolated  from  present,  practical  conditions, 
inadequate  to  our  civilization,  enmeshed  in  effete  theories  of 
general  culture,  and  there  is  need  of  a  great  awakening.  They 
are  unmindful  of  the  era  of  radical  reconstruction  that  im- 
pends. Our  educational  leaders  discourse  learnedly  of  theo- 
ries of  interest,  but  have  allowed  the  schools  under  their 
charge  to  lose,  if  not  to  kill,  the  interest  of  boys  in  the  dawn- 
ing teens.  This  loss  is  nothing  less  than  tragic.  The  causes 
of  this  withdrawal  are  not  flattering.  In  this  country  the  in- 
terests of  children  dominate;  parental  authority  is  usually 
weak  or  not  exercised;  while  compulsory  laws,  where  they 
exist,  are  ineffective.  We  have  neglected  to  study  the  most 
vital  thing  in  the  situation,  namely,  the  zests  of  the  young. 
The  Massachusetts  Commission  found  that  of  3,157  families, 
most  could  afford  to  send  their  children  to  school  from  14  to 
16,  and  would  have  done  so  had  the  education  been  likely  to 
be  of  use,  and  under  virile,  practical  men.  The  boys  left 
school  because  they  wanted  to,  and  not  because  their  parents 
wished  them  to  do  so,  and  often  against  their  desires.  Sixty- 
three  per  cent  of  the  boys  declared  they  would  have  gone  to 
a  trade  school,  and  55  per  cent  of  the  parents  would  have 
sent  them. 

Third,  we  have  not  taken  account  of  the  nature  of  the 
great  upheaval  at  the  dawn  of  the  teens,  which  marks  the 
pubescent  ferment,  and  which  requires  distinct  change  in  mat- 
ter and  method  of  education.  This  instinct  is  far  stronger 
and  has  more  very  ostensive  outcrops  than  in  any  other  age 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  545 

and  land,  and  it  is  less  controlled  by  the  authority  of  the 
school  or  the  home.  It  is  a  period  of  very  rapid,  if  not  ful- 
minating, psychic  expansion.  It  is  the  natal  hour  of  new  curi- 
osities, when  adult  life  first  begins  to  exert  its  potent  charm. 
It  is  an  age  of  exploration,  of  great  susceptibility,  plasticity, 
eagerness,  pervaded  by  the  instinct  to  try  and  plan  in  many 
different  directions.  An  important  factor  is  found  in  the  sig- 
nificant circumstance  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  Ameri- 
can parents  are  discontented  with  their  own  vocations  and 
do  not  care  for  their  children  to  follow  in  their  own  foot- 
steps, so  that  their  offspring,  as  a  rule,  pass  through  a  period 
lasting  some  years  of  wasteful  tension,  trial,  and  error.  They 
drift  and  finally  settle  to  a  calling  with  little  complacency,  and 
one  perhaps  for  which  they  are  not  only  ill-adapted  by  train- 
ing but  unfitted  by  their  nature — an  evil  which  vocation  bu- 
reaus might  do  much  to  remedy.  One  careful  study  shows 
that  even  skilled  workmen  here  often  distinctly  do  not  wish 
their  children  to  follow  their  own  trade.  The  lesson  of  the 
many  immigrants,  like  the  Irish,  who  have  developed  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest  industries,  rather  suggests  certain  ad- 
vantages in  this  unsettlement.  The  Massachusetts  Child 
Labor  Committee  studied  the  choice  of  vocation  of  300  adults 
and  found  that  less  than  5  per  cent  of  them  were  satisfied 
with  their  calling.  A.  C.  Thompson,  of  Auburn,  N.  Y.,  asked 
467  pupils  what  vocation  they  had  planned  and  noted  their 
choice,  and  1 1  years  later  found  that  only  5  per  cent  of  the 
406  of  them  he  could  reach  were  following  the  calling  they 
proposed.  Thus  an  early  choice  of  vocation,  which  is  now 
often  advocated  in  the  interests  of  vocational  efficiency,  seems 
to  be  more  or  less  opposed  to  American  ideas. 

But  the  boy  who  leaves  school  early  has  a  hard  time.  The  maxi- 
mal age  limit  for  compulsory  school  attendance  is  usually  14,  and 
employers  of  skilled  labor  will  rarely  take  boys  or  girls  under  16 
or  18.  Those  from  14  to  16  who  have  finished  the  seventh  grade 
are  rarely  wanted  as  apprentices  and  have  to  wait  from  i  to  4  years 
and  take  whatever  comes.  Hence  they  enter  unskilled  occupations 
with  poor  pay,  often  very  unsanitary  conditions,  and  perhaps  night 
work,  so  that  these  years  are  often  wasted  if  not  worse.  It  is  in 
fact  very  difficult  to  go  from  a  low,  unskilled  into  a  skilled  industry 
and  few  achieve  it.  Unsteadiness  of  employment  is  the  rule.  The 
girls,  who  usually  leave  school  to  dress  better,  and  boys,  who  do 
86 


546  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

so  because  their  chums  do,  or  to  earn  money,  are  often  subjected  to 
grievous  disappointment.  The  work  they  do  affords  Httle  opportu- 
nity for  development.  The  Massachusetts  Labor  Commission  inter- 
viewed 2,000  boys  who  had  attended  public  school  in  1879.  Of  these 
855  stated  that  they  would  have  remained  in  school  had  it  taught 
them  a  trade.  Only  36  thought  their  school  had  fitted  them  for  any 
definite  line  of  work.  Of  the  total  number,  458  were  receiving  an 
average  wage  of  about  $4  per  week  and  258  less  than  $7  per  week. 
In  Manhattan  1,000  children  from  14  to  16  secured  employment  cer- 
tificates. Out  of  603  traced,  489  were  at  work  and  56  were  doing 
some  studying,  while  the  others  were  idle  or  engaged  in  juvenile 
employments  or  unskilled  labor.  Two  hundred  and  ninety-six  of  the 
319  New  York  parents  of  these  children  favored  industrial  educa- 
tion. The  superintendent  of  Cincinnati  schools  issued  employment 
certificates  to  195  school  children,  of  whom  137  were  14,  and  59 
were  15.  During  the  first  22  days  of  June,  1908,  of  this  total,  55 
secured  employment  in  shoe  and  box  factories,  clothing  stores,  mes- 
senger service,  bakeries,  and  laundries.  The  majority  of  these  boys 
had  not  finished  the  sixth  grade.  Another  line  of  inquiry  shows 
that  it  is  not  the  low-grade  foreigners  who  are  most  prone  to  take 
their  children  from  the  schools.  Another  census  of  young  wage- 
earners  shows  that  55  per  cent  were  errand,  messenger,  and  office 
boys,  45  per  cent  entered  mills;  of  the  girls,  28  per  cent  became 
cash,  errand,  and  candy  girls,  and  ^2  per  cent  entered  mills.  Thirty- 
three  per  cent  of  these  boys  and  girls  entered  unskilled  and  65  per 
cent  low-grade  industries,  and  only  2  per  cent  skilled.  Far  less 
girls  than  boys  undertook  skilled  labor.  The  wages  of  cash  girls 
before  the  age  of  17  are  usually  from  $5  to  $9  a  week.  They 
usually  reach  the  height  of  their  earning  power  before  20  with  an 
income  of  from  $8  to  $10,  which  they  will  never  exceed.^  The 
Lewis  Institute  of  Chicago  lately  advertised  for  boys  from  16  to  18 
to  take  their  cooperative  course,  one  week  in  the  shop  and  the  next 
in  the  school.     One  advertisement  brought  60  boys. 

The  above  facts  show  what  it  is  very  hard  for  pedagogues 
to  reahze,  viz.,  that  very  few  children  have  any  real  intel- 
lectual interests.  Intellectual  interests  are  very  subordinate 
with  most.  Very  few  have  taste  or  ability  for  learning.  Most 
boys  are  in  school  to  get  something  out  of  it.  Most  never 
have,  can,  or  will  care  at  all  for  culture  or  know  what  it 
means.  The  stock  school  studies  do  not  appeal  to  but  often 
bore  them.  The  drill  to  which  they  have  been  subjected  be- 
fore pubescence  becomes  irksome  when  they  reach  this  crisis. 

1  Kingsbury,  S.  M.    What  is  Ahead  for  the  Untrained  Child  in  Industry? 
Charities,  1907,  vol.  19,  pp.  808-813. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  547 

They  are  impatient  of  books,  which  seem  to  them  to  hide  life. 
So  strong  is  their  aversion  to  school  that  parents,  teachers, 
and  the  law  combined  do  not  keep  them  there.  There  is  a 
sad  misfit  here.  We  fail  to  adapt  the  boy  to  the  school  or  the 
school  to  the  boy.  Again,  there  always  ought  to  be  a  rather 
exact  correlation  between  the  age  limits  of  compulsory  at- 
tendance and  the  lower  age  limit  of  admission  to  the  local  in- 
dustries. In  fact,  many  who  leave  for  work  cannot  find  it, 
because  employers  can  obtain  all  the  crude  help  they  want 
from  older  boys  for  the  same  pay.  Of  354  employers  asked, 
250  objected  to  employing  children  under  16,  and  228  did  not 
believe  children  were  of  much  value  in  industry,  although  320 
of  them  favored  trade  training.  Hence,  those  who  are  un- 
successful are  not  only  idle  but  peculiarly  exposed  to  bad  in- 
fluences, liable  to  form  bad  habits,  grow  wild,  may  become 
a  menace  to  society  and  a  nuisance  to  themselves,  their  par- 
ents, and  the  neighbors  in  their  community.  At  the  most 
susceptible  age  of  life,  when  more  than  at  any  other  they 
need — and  in  all  ages  and  lands  before  have  had — the  most 
training  and  attention  (because  the  history  of  education  from 
primitive  races  up  shows  that  it  always  begins  here  and  ex- 
tends up  toward  the  university  and  down  toward  the  kin- 
dergarten as  civilization  advances)  they  are  tossed  out  upon 
the  world  and  now  thrown  into  the  city  street.  The  condition 
of  these  boys  is  pitiable  in  the  extreme  as  well  as  dangerous. 
They  wish  to  do  and  earn  something,  but  every  door  is  shut 
in  their  faces.  Their  schooling  does  not  prove  of  aid  to  them, 
so  they  naturally  query  what  good  more  schooling  would  do. 
These  unappropriated,  useless  boys  often  group  together  in 
gangs  and  a  few  of  them  become  criminal.  Tiiey  are  disap- 
pointed, restless,  irregular  in  their  habits.  Those  who  have 
been  in  school  a  little  longer  find  themselves  o^ten  surpassed 
by  those  who  left  earlier.  Those  who  find  employment  must 
often  put  up  with  odd  jobs  and  small  pay,  and  so.  as  one 
special  study  shows,  boys  who  find  employment  under  16 
change  from  two  to  seven  times  a  year.  Gradually,  as  the 
years  pass,  they  earn  a  living  wage  in  some  employment  they 
never  dreamed  of  entering,  and,  although  the  pay  is  small, 
they  have  settled  into  the  rut  just  enough  so  that  they  cannot 
afford  to  change,  for  to  begin  another  line  would  involve  at 


548  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

least  temporary  loss.  Thus  many  slowly  settle  into  unskilled 
laborers,  but  with  the  worm  of  regret  and  disquiet  gnawing 
at  their  hearts  and  perhaps  with  a  subtle  feeling  that  things 
are  wrong,  so  that  they  are  ready  on  any  occasion  to  join 
the  ranks  of  the  discontented  after  years  of  hoping  for  some- 
thing that  never  came. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  boys  and  girls  from  14  to  16 
who  enter  unskilled  industries  reach  their  maximum  earning 
capacity  at  the  age  of  18  or  19.  Those  who  attend  school 
till  16  or  18,  although  they  have  little  skill  or  intelligence, 
are  more  likely  to  secure  mercantile  positions  and,  if  they  take 
technical  courses,  progress  more  rapidly,  although  this  is 
largely  due,  not  to  what  they  have  learned  in  school,  but  to 
greater  physical  and  mental  maturity.  The  Massachusetts 
Commission  says  summarily :  "  For  the  purpose  of  training 
for  efficiency  in  productive  employments,  these  added  years 
which  they  spend  in  school  are  to  a  considerable  extent  lost 
years."  It  is  passive  rather  than  active  power  and  ability  to 
render  service  that  the  schools  develop.  School  children  by 
no  means  get  equal  opportunities  to  make  the  most  of  them- 
selves in  our  schools  as  at  present  constituted,  because  they 
chiefly  regard  the  few  who  go  on  instead  of  the  many  who 
drop  off. 

Nevertheless,  we  have  many  estimates  often  set  forth  in 
graphic  figures  by  partisans  of  industrial  education  and  es- 
pecially by  institutions,  calculated  to  show  parents  and  pupils 
the  pecuniary  advantages  of  staying  in  school.  The  United 
States  Commissioner  of  Labor  says  that  a  common  school 
education  increases  a  man's  wage-earning  power  50  per  cent, 
a  high-school  training  100  per  cent,  and  college  training  200 
per  cent.  C.  F.  Perry,  director  of  the  public  trade  school  in 
Milwaukee,  figures  the  value  of  a  trade  school  education 
something  as  follows :  a  14-year-old  boy  is  worth  $4  a  week 
or  $200  a  year,  which  equals  a  5  per  cent  income  on  $4,000. 
A  trade  school,  we  are  told,  will  take  the  boy  at  this  age,  and 
in  two  years  make  him  worth  $15  a  week  or  $800  a  year, 
which  equals  5  per  cent  on  $16,000 — a  fourfold  augmenta- 
tion in  two  years.  It  is  a  somewhat  suspicious  circumstance 
that,  if  we  compare  the  collection  of  money  value  estimates 
of  education,  they  show  great  diversities  of  method  and  re- 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  549 

suit,  and  that  they  have  hitherto  been  used  chiefly  as  appeals 
to  young  people  to  go  to  college  and  other  higher  institutions. 
The  economic  value  of  trade  training  is  undoubtedly  very 
great,  but  it  is  not  yet  comprehensively  made  out  in  statistical 
form,  although  the  pure  culturist  in  education  scorns  this  very 
point  of  view  because  he  insists  that  the  highest  value  of  edu- 
cation is  not  counted  in  dollars  and  cents.  It  is,  nevertheless, 
of  the  greatest  significance  not  only  for  national  efficiency 
generally,  but  also  for  the  peace  of  mind  and  prosperity  of  all 
kinds  of  toilers. 

After  this  period  of  years  of  unsettlement,  change,  anx- 
iety, youth  in  the  later  teens  and  the  early  twenties  often  come 
to  appreciate  the  value  of  special  training  and  are  disposed 
to  set  apart  time  and  some  of  their  earnings  to  make  up  past 
loss  and  to  better  their  condition  in  the  future.  They  turn 
to  evening,  and  perhaps  in  this  country  rather  more  often  to 
correspondence,  schools.  This  work,  however  helpful  it  may 
be  i-n  many  cases,  is  always  undertaken  under  grievous  disad- 
vantages. One  authority  states  that  a  large  number  of  those 
seeking  these  courses  are  not  proficient  in  the  fundamental 
rules  of  arithmetic.  The  best  courses  on  paper,  some  of  which 
are  well  and  some  very  inadequately  worked  out,  lack  two 
vital  things :  first,  'the  personal  touch,  guidance,  and  inspira- 
tion of  the  teacher,  which  letters,  under  the  best  conditions, 
cannot  make  good ;  and,  second,  the  material  or  laboratory 
element.  No  educational  announcements  are  more  alluring. 
Probably  no  institutions  are  resorted  to  by  a  class  of  young 
people  so  thoroughly  in  earnest  to  increase  their  knowledge 
and  better  their  position.  It  is  commendable  to  the  spirit  of 
our  country  that  these  young  men  wish  to  rise;  but  it  is  not 
creditable  to  the  leading  educational  states  and  cities  where 
they  live  and  were  brought  up  that  they  must  seek  what  they 
want  so  late  and  so  far  away.  Vast  numbers  Ix'gin  but  few 
complete  the  best  of  these  courses.  In  1898  the  International 
Correspondence  School  at  Scranton  had  an  enroUmcnt  of 
8o,cxx);  but  this  has  now  increased  to  more  than  100,000  per 
annum.  On  November  12,  1906,  it  numl)cre<l  940.000  .stu- 
dents. In  June,  1907,  12,143  li'^^l  finished  their  course  and 
were  granted  certificates,  and  the  school  now  grants  antuially 
about   2,700  diplomas,  a  number  which   nearly  equals  those 


550  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

given  by  all  the  engineering  and  technical  colleges  in  the 
country.  Over  80  per  cent  of  some  300,000  students  of  the 
correspondence  school  did  not  know  fractions  when  they  began. 
The  American  Correspondence  School  of  Chicago  has  prob- 
ably about  10,000  enrolled.  Over  70,000  in  the  State  of  Ohio 
are  taking  correspondence  courses  and  have  paid  in  tuition 
nearly  $5,000,000.^  It  is  estimated  that*  about  55,000  in  Mas- 
sachusetts, with  all  its  higher  educational  institutions,  are 
taking  correspondence  courses  and  have  paid  in  tuition  near- 
ly $2,200,000,  assuming  each  to  have  paid  $50.  This  amount 
at  interest  at  4  per  cent  would  yield  $88,000,  and  if  distrib- 
uted among  the  28  industrial  centers  of  the  state  would  give 
each  $3,100,  which  might  pay  instruction  for  300  students  in 
technical  and  commercial  courses  in  each  city.  C.  R.  Mann  ^ 
estimates  that  more  people  are  taking  correspondence  courses 
in  this  country  than  are  enrolled  in  all  secondary  and  higher 
institutions.  In  England  there  are  about  12,000  adult 
schools.  France,  where  compulsory  attendance  ends  at -13, 
has  1,000,000  continuation  pupils,  52,000  courses,  40,000  pop- 
ular libraries,  110,000  lectures  attended  by  3,000,000  people. 

The  pedagogy  of  industrial  education  is  best  begun  by  a  glance 
at  the  tnediccval  gilds,  in  which  labor  attained  a  more  ideal  organiza- 
tion than  ever  before  or  since.  Takert  at  their  best,  they  represent 
the  world's  golden  age  of  artisanship  and  ought  to  be  studied  by 
modern  labor  leaders  somewhat  as  literary  men  study  the  great 
mythopceic  cycles  in  Homer,  the  Arthuriad,  the  Niebelungenlied,  etc. 
Their  relation  to  labor  may  be  not  entirely  without  aptness  com- 
pared with  that  of  the  Apostolic  Age  to  contemporary  Christianity. 
Strange  to  say,  although  their  influence  is  still  so  potent  in  England 
and  western  Europe,  their  history,  which  almost  began  with  Bren- 
tano's  brilliant  sketch,^  is  very  imperfectly  known,  the  original  rec- 
ords having  sometimes  been  withheld  despite  orders  of  the  courts 
(for  some  of  them  involve  present  business  interests)  while  the 
original  records,  when  accessible,  are  voluminous  and  hard  to  de- 
cipher.    In  London  alone  no  less  than  iii  of  these  were  listed  in 

^  MacGruder.   Present  Status  of  Technical  Education  in  Ohio.    State  Bulletin. 

*  Mann,  C.  R.  Industrial  and  Technical  Training  in  the  Secondary  Schools 
and  its  Bearing  on  College-entrance  Requirements.  School  Review,  1908,  vol. 
16,  pp.  425-438. 

'  Brentano,  Lujo.  On  the  History  and  Development  of  Gilds  and  the  Origin  of 
Trade-unions.  (In  J.  T.  Smith,  English  Gilds.  London,  Triibner,  1870.  Preface, 
pp.  49-199-) 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  551 

1422.^  There  were  gilds  of  judges,  doctors,  bankers,  tailors,  spin- 
ners, bookbinders,  builders,  weavers,  upholsterers,  poulterers,  hat- 
ters, dyers,  armorers,  vintners,  pewterers,  ropers,  tapestrers,  cord- 
wainers,  haberdashers,  mongers  or  venders  of  fish,  cheese,  corn, 
wood,  wine,  oil,  soap,  as  well  as  manufacturers  and  dealers  in  goods 
of  silk,  wool,  skin,  net  makers,  glovers,  merchant  tailors,  etc.  These 
corporations,  societies,  or  unions  sometimes  erected  halls,  almost  a 
score  of  which,  some  recent  and  imposing^  exist  in  London  to-day. 
The  gilds  differed  very  widely  in  power,  size,  and  mode  of  organiza- 
tion. Some  had  many  aspects  of  a  secret  society  like  the  Masons; 
some  had  their  greater  and  their  lesser  mysteries,  perhaps  their  initi- 
ations. Very  common  were  the  stages  of  apprentice,  journeyman 
and  master,  the  latter  producing  his  masterpiece,  somewhat  as  a 
baccalaureate  to-day  does  a  thesis,  after  7  years  of  apprenticeship. 
Skill  in  workmanship  was  the  most  precious  possession  of  members 
of  the  crafts'  gilds.  They  had  we  know  not  how  much  to  do  with 
the  rearing  of  the  great  cathedrals;  and  the  earliest  universities, 
especially  those  of  Paris  and  Bologna,  were  at  first  only  gilds  of 
scholars  and  masters.  Their  codes  sought  to  maintain  high  stand- 
ards of  honor  and  excellence  in  arts  and  crafts  as  well  as  in  trade. 
Some  had  their  own  churches  or  chapels ;  and  there  were  many 
mutual  help  features  in  case  of  illness  or  death.  Some  were  domi- 
nant factors  in  the  development  of  municipalities.  Some  controlled 
the  exchange,  markets,  held  elections,  were  fraternal  and  republican, 
and  held  penalizing,  forestalling  and  all  such  practices  unworthy  of  a 
true  trade  or  crafts  man.  Some  became  very  rich  and  their  cap- 
tains of  industry  led  lives  of  luxury  of  which  they  were  ostentatious. 
Some  endowed  schools;  they  often  instituted  miracle  plays,  held 
exhibitions  and  fairs  for  the  display  of  their  products,  devised  many 
pageants  and  gorgeous  processionals.  To  turn  out  inferior  work 
was  disloyalty,  and  the  best  codes  distinctly  tended  to  make  an 
aristocracy  of  expert  craftsmanship,  to  foster  pride  in  the  product, 
and  to  crown   virtuosity  wherever  it  appeared.     Gilds  levied  taxes 

'  Unwin,  George.  The  Gilds  and  Companies  of  London.  London,  Methuen, 
IQ08.  397  p.  Sec  also  Exigcumbe  Staley:  The  Gilds  of  Florence  (London,  Me- 
thuen, 1906.  622  p.),  in  which  he  divides  those  that  existed  there  into  9  great,  4 
intermediate,  and  9  minor  gilds.  Also  \.  Milnes:  From  Gild  to  Factory.  London, 
Finch,  1904.  83  p.  .Also  J.  Toulmin  Smith:  F>nglish  Gilds,  the  Original  Ordinances 
of  more  than  One  Hundred  Karly  English  Gilds  as  they  Existed  in  the  Year  1389. 
London,  Trilbner,  1870.  483  p.  Also  P.  Brisson:  HUstoire  du  Travail  el  des  Tra- 
vailleurs.    Paris,  Delagrave,  1906.    538  p. 

The  monasteries  of  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries  always  strove  to  get  the 
best  craftsmen,  and  so  did  the  feudal  lords.  To  pass  off  spurious  or  defective  work 
often  cost  the  workman  his  hand  or  ear.  Every  fatht-r  had  to  teat  h  his  son  all  the 
secrets  of  the  trade  and  jounu-ymen  must  travel  for  three  years  in  different  lands. 
In  Germany  there  still  must  often  be  an  examination  iK-fore  three  masters  of  the 
trade,  a  professor  of  chemistry  and  physics,  and  a  school-teacher,  together  with 
a  work — drawings  and  all — made  by  the  candidate. 


SS^  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

on  their  members,  sometimes  constructed  great  public  works,  sent 
out  trading  expeditions  by  land  and  sea,  etc.,  etc. 

Now  the  fascinating  feature  about  the  arts  and  crafts  movement 
of  to-day  is  seen  from  a  culture-history  even  more  than  from  an 
educational  point  of  view.  It  is  that  it  belongs  to  a  group  of  move- 
ments, great  and  small,  which  have  been  motivated  by  harking  back 
to  an  earlier  stage  of  culture  or  picking  up  a  lost  chord.  Here  belong, 
e.  g.,  the  revival  of  interest  among  the  ancient  Hebrews  under  Ezra 
in  their  own  Scriptures  when  they  returned  from  captivity  to  re- 
build Zion  and  listened  all  day  to  the  story  of  how  Jahve  had  dealt 
with  their  forefathers  of  old;  the  Renaissance,  when  classical  an- 
tiquity and  its  ideals  inspired  Europe;  Protestantism  so  far  as  its 
slogan  was  "  Back  to  the  Scriptures  " ;  the  revival  of  sacramentalism 
and  Catholicism  under  Pusey  and  Newman ;  and  in  a  smaller  way 
the  enthusiasm  with  which  many  primitive  races  and  even  civilized 
nations  have  revived  ancient  national  dances  (see  Chapter  H),  cus- 
toms, pageants,  processionals,  etc.  And  so  the  arts  and  crafts  cult 
of  to-day  is  a  to  be  sure  rather  feeble  effort  to  revive  and  trans- 
figure mediaevalism  in  industry,  also  involving  transformations  of 
social  ideals  supposed  to  be  germane  to  the  gild  spirit.  In  a  sense, 
the  movement  originated  in  Sir  Walter  Scott's  defiance  of  effete 
classical  art  and  his  preference  for  the  Gothic;  the  pre-Raphaelite 
revolt  against  the  alien  classical  element  which  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
introduced  made  its  contribution ;  and  also  Carlyle's  sonorous  and 
impressive  phrases  concerning  the  dignity  of  work,  and  his  glorifica- 
tion of  great  men  as  those  who  can  do  rather  than  know,  talk  or 
write.  He  said :  "  Our  terrestrial  planet,  nine  tenths  of  which  is 
vacant  or  tenanted  by  nomads,  is  still  crying,  '  Come  and  till  me, 
come  and  reap  me.' "  This  cry  falls  on  deaf  ears  in  the  slums,  be- 
cause the  desire  for  companionship  overpowers  all  others. 

One  may  well  stand  aghast  at  the  following  words  of  John  Stuart 
Mill :  "  It  is  doubtful  whether  the  use  of  machinery  has  yet  light- 
ened the  day's  toil  of  a  single  human  being,"  although  we  call  them 
labor-saving  devices.  If  they  relieve  great  efforts  and  the  funda- 
mental muscles,  they  often  lay  greater  burdens  upon  the  finer  move- 
ments, the  nervous  system,  and  restrict  liberty,  and  are  especially 
fateful  for  individuality.  The  cult  of  utility  has  driven  out  that  of 
beauty  and  man  has  lost  pleasure  in  his  work.  Instead  of  healthful 
merriment,  he  is  herded  in  great  penlike  workshops  and  is  deficient 
even  in  the  primal  conditions  of  life:  light,  air,  water,  food.  No 
contrast  can  be  greater  than  that  of  the  factory  system,  where  man 
becomes  a  slave  of  his  machine  and  often  its  victim  with  almost 
crushing  monotony  and  sameness  of  work,  and  the  spirit  of  Hans 
Sachs,  the  poet  cobbler  in  old  Nuremberg,  or  the  condition  of  in- 
dustry and  trade  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  where  Valera 
describes  21  gilds  with  7  of  them  chief.  They  were  perhaps  the 
most  potent  influence  of  their  day.  Ruskin's  writings  have  for 
fifty  years  been  codified  on  a  vast  variety  of  topics  and  many  have 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  553 

admired  him  to  an  unreasonable  degree,  which  seems  to  silence  their 
critical  faculty  and  makes  them  mistake  religious  and  social  rhap- 
sody for  art  criticism.  In  the  day  of  great  scientific  men,  Ruskin 
dared  to  assert  the  right  of  sentiments  in  the  world  which,  despite 
some  of  his  sayings  to  the  contrary,  were  more  or  less  antagonistic 
to  science.  He  gloried  in  inconsistencies  and  moods,  would  utterly 
destroy  most  railways,  tear  down  and  rebuild  the  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment, the  National  Gallery,  East  London ;  destroy  and  rebuild  Edin- 
burgh and  New  York,  etc.,  in  a  way  that  doubtless  suggested  Patrick 
Geddes's  elaborate  volume  planning  for  the  expenditure  of  millions 
in  reconstructing  the  ruins  and  rebuilding  the  town  oi  Dunfermline, 
Carnegie's  birthplace,  which  even  his  commission,  which  is  doing 
perhaps  more  than  was  ever  done  in  the  way  of  reconstruction  for 
any  modern  town,  regarded  with  consternation  for  its  radical  ideal- 
ism. At  Coniston,  in  England's  lake  region,  Ruskin  devised  an  engi- 
neering scheme  to  reclaim  land  and  attract  labor.  He  taught  draw- 
ing at  evening  classes  to  working  men,  lectured  to  audiences  crowded 
to  the  door,  resigned  his  place  at  the  University  because  it  refused 
to  buy  Turner's  picture,  "  The  Crook  of  Lune,"  sanctioned  vivisec- 
tion, endowed  a  masterpiece  for  the  art  school  at  Oxford,  inherited 
£175,000,  and  died  almost  poor;  founded  St.  George's  Gild  to  effect  a 
return  to  primitive  agriculture  where  modern  machines  and  manu- 
factories were  banished,  and  the  vows  of  the  inmates  inculcated 
reverence  to  God,  honor,  obedience,  economy,  industry,  and  was 
frenzied  because  it  failed;  and  wrote  his  immortal  works.  Vet  he 
never  wrote  a  line  that  was  coarse,  frivolous,  or  designed  to  win 
cither  money  or  popularity.  He  pilloried  what  he  called  the  "  School 
of  Cram  "  and  resisted  extreme  specialization,  which  he  thought  in- 
compatible with  culture.  "  Great  nations  write  their  biographies  in 
three  manuscripts:  the  book  of  their  words,  the  book  of  their  deeds, 
and  the  book  of  their  art.  Not  one  of  these  books  can  be  understood 
unless  we  read  the  other  two;  but  of  the  three  the  only  one  alto- 
gether trustworthy  is  the  last."  Holman  Hunt,  Millais,  Maddox 
Brown,  wrote  in  this  spirit;  and  the  pre-Raphaelite  revolt  "with 
simpering  faces,  brown  cows,  the  same  white  sails  in  the  squalls  and 
the  same  slices  of  lemon  in  the  saucers  "  at  any  rate  marked  the 
violence  of  the  insurrection  against  the  alien  classical  element  which 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  had  introduced.  This  is  not  the  place  to  write 
the  history  of  this  movement  or  to  more  than  refer  to  one  or  two  of 
the  literary  products  which  it  inspired,  such  as  Sir  Walter  Bcsant's 
"  All  Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men,"  which  resulted  in  the  People's 
Palace;  Bradley  Gilman's  "Back  to  the  Soil,"  a  typical  chapter  in 
which  is  "  The  Lesson  Drawn  from  a  Pie,"  which  is  a  circle  city 
consisting  of  farms  with  dwellings  near  the  apex  of  each  wedge, 
raying  out  into  first  flowers,  then  market  gardens,  then  mow  land, 
and  farthest  out  tillage  and  forest,  with  park,  church,  clubs,  schools, 
department  stores,  near  the  center;  "The  Land  of  Decay,"  by  Rene 
Bazin,  which  shows  how  the  French  peasantry  had  degenerated  under 


554  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

modem  industry,  describing  the  gradual  decay  of  the  typical  family, 
member  by  member,  a  decay  that  was  also  physiological, ^moral,  and 
religious,  although  with  a  glimpse  of  hope  in  the  one  best  woman 
left  of  an  old  family  who  gives  herself  to  a  vigorous  poor  man,  the 
husband  of  her  choice,  in  order  to  try  to  regenerate  the  stock. 

William  Morris,  a  student  of  Chaucer,  author  of  the  "  Earthly 
Paradise,"  the  modern  skald  who  told  the  great  story  of  the  north 
which  "  should  be  for  all  our  race  what  the  tale  of  Troy  was  to  the 
Greeks,"  was  himself  skilled  in  the  technic  of  half  a  dozen  trades, 
and  was  an  artist  socialist,  urging  that  "  all  men  should  have  work 
to  do  which  should  be  worth  doing  and  pleasant."  In  1852  he 
entered  Oxford  and  came  in  contact  with  Burne-Jones.  As  a  young 
man  he  thought  of  founding  a  religious  brotherhood  whose  patron 
should  be  Sir  Galahad.  His  ideal  was  a  commonwealth  where  there 
should  be  neither  rich  nor  poor,  idle  nor  overworked,  master  nor 
master's  man,  and  he  was  driven  to  the  view  that  revolution  was  the 
only  hope.  In  1859  he  planned  his  famous  Red  House,  prototype  of 
the  Queen  Anne  style,  for  his  lovely  bride.  Later  he  founded  the 
firm  of  Morris  &  Company  for  ecclesiastical  decoration  at  the  time 
of  the  aesthetic  revival  among  London  churches,  and  pilgrimages  are 
yet  made  to  the  windows  he  built  from  i860  to  1870.  Growing  in- 
terested in  weaving  and  dyeing,  which  he  studied  in  his  own  vats,  he 
devised  a  system  of  colors  with  very  frank  hues  before  the  aniline 
dyes,  and  criticised  the  Gobelin  factories  as  degrading  fine  art  to  a 
mere  upholsterer's  toy.  In  his  study  for  revival  he  set  up  a  hand 
loom  in  his  own  bedroom  and  became  an  expert  workman.  Then 
came  the  Kelmscott  Press,  in  1890,  from  which  after  careful  study 
of  the  great  mediaeval  printers  and  binders,  Elzevir,  Aldus,  Plantins, 
and  Estiennes,  its  chief  masterpiece,  Chaucer,  appeared  in  1896,  the 
result  of  a  year  and  nine  months'  work.  The  true  workman,  he 
held,  must  have  a  bent  so  strong  that  no  education  can  force  him 
from  it.  The  creation  of  beauty  should  be  to  him  as  necessary  as 
his  daily  bread.  He  lectured  all  over  the  kingdom,  joined  the  So- 
cialistic League  to  promote  "  revolutionary  international  socialism," 
marched  in  processions,  edited  the  "  Common  Weal."  His  "  com- 
pany "  was  composed  entirely  of  artists,  students,  and  literary  men, 
and  the  aim  was  to  produce  objects  demanding  the  highest  orig- 
inality of  conception  and  skill  down  to  tables,  cupboards,  settles, 
andirons,  candlesticks  and  table  glass.  Tradesmen  resented  his 
intrusion  into  their  sphere.  He  studied  worsted  work,  crewels,  and 
designed  serges  and  chintzes  for  mural  decoration,  as  well  as  carpets 
and  wall  paper. 

Cobden-Sanderson  at  the  age  of  forty  dropped  his  barrister's  wig 
and  gown  for  the  beretta  and  blouse  of  a  workman,  and  established 
the  Doves  Bindery  in  London,  and  became  the  apostle  and  prophet 
of  labor  wedded  to  art  and  intelligence.  His  concern  expressed  a 
social  conviction,  for  all  share  profits  and  his  disciples  call  him  "  the 
first  citizen  of  Altruria."     Not  only  is  manual  labor  held  to  dignify 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  5SS 

existence,  but  the  maxim  here  is  not  to  succeed,  but  to  excel.  In 
working  on  the  book  beautiful  in  beaten  leather  or  crushed  Levant 
to  which  each  worker's  name  is  attached,  the  workshop  becomies  not 
merely  a  place  to  make  a  living,  but  a  place  of  the  greatest  pleasure 
and  honor.  Illumination,  tooling,  printing  on  vellum  or  full  white 
pigskin,  and  incidental  carving,  chipping,  upholstery  and  cabinet 
making  in  fumed  oak,  driftwood,  pyrography,  burned  wood,  etc.,  are 
now  undertaken  by  the  best  representatives  of  the  crafts  movement 
on  the  principle  that,  if  the  work  is  in  the  man,  the  man  puts  him- 
self into  his  work. 

The  influence  of  this  movement  has  spread  far  and  in  many 
directions.  The  weaving  and  tapestry  house  of  Haslemere  near  the 
home  of  Tennyson,  George  Eliot,  and  Tyndall,  is  one  type,  with  its 
picturesque  and  mediaeval  stone  cottages  and  half-timber  houses  with 
overhanging  stories,  where  about  1894  Joseph  King  started  weaving 
and  other  industries  that  the  village  girls  might  not  drift  to  London. 
The  two  workshops  of  two  stories  each  were  designed  by  a  well- 
known  artist ;  and  there  are  daily  visitors  to  see  the  rare  linen  and 
cotton  fabrics,  all  of  which  are  hand-woven  and  sometimes  hand- 
spun,  or  the  chests,  presses,  wheels,  reels,  and  looms  rich  in  color. 
Woolen  rugs,  peasant  tapestry,  linen  applique  for  wall  hangings  and 
ceremonial  usages  are  made,  and  on  the  wall  are  Blount's  fine  de- 
signs in  gesso,  with  hand-made  pottery  on  shelves.  The  same  work- 
men continue,  year  after  year,  happy,  natural,  self-supporting.  The 
founder  held  that  the  redemption  of  art  must  come  from  the  work- 
ers who  with  loving  touch  decorate  things  useful  for  every  day.  To 
be  sure,  the  real  originalities  are  rare,  few  and  far  between.  It  is 
impossible  to  enumerate  the  many  lesser  movements  which  have 
their  inspiration  here :  e.  g.,  the  Evelyn  Nordhoff  hand  bindery  at 
Syracuse ;  Douglas  Volk's  colony  at  Lovell,  Me.,  where  carding, 
spinning,  weaving,  and  rug  work  are  done,  the  Deerfield  revival  of 
old  Puritan  home  industries ;  the  Busck  studio  for  hammered  copper, 
brass,  and  tooled  leather  which  is  intended  to  bring  design  and  pro- 
duction together,  whether  in  building  a  house  or  reviving  some  lost 
art  like  that  of  the  Abnakce  rugs,  or  fine  enamel  work  now  taught 
at  Boston  and  the  Pratt  Institute,  or  the  discovery  by  the  Tiffanys 
of  the  glass  workman's  processes  as  shown  by  the  excavations  of 
Herculaneum  and  Pompeii.  Cathedrals  claim  their  enthusiasts,  one 
of  whom  calls  them  "  joint  products  of  God  and  the  artists."  While 
the  high  place  of  music,  painting,  poetry,  and  sculpture  is  by  no 
means  disparaged,  it  is  urged  that  these  are  not  the  only  lost  arts 
that  have  been  restored,  or  those  that  are  remote,  unfaniiHar,  and 
now  insufficiently  cultivated,  but  burned  wood  and  leather,  mosaic, 
silver  and  gold  smithing,  should  have  just  as  high  a  place.  I'.lbcrt 
Hubbard  began  his  work  at  East  Aurora  in  the  same  sjjirit  in  the 
Roycroft  or  King  Craft  Shop.  This  is  a  small  coiuitry  jjlaoe  and  the 
work  started  with  jjfinting,  then  bookbinding  and  some  ilhiiniiiating : 
terra  cotta,  stone  work  and  modeling  have  been  tried.     Here  some 


556  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

300  men  and  women,  old  and  young,  not  excluding  a  few  who  were 
rescued  from  criminal  careers,  have  been  given  opportunities  to  re- 
deem their  lives.  There  is  profit-sharing,  a  piano  in  the  workroom, 
social  gatherings,  concerts,  lectures,  and  dances.  The  first  building 
to  be  put  up  was  of  cobblestones,  brought  by  the  townsfolk  at  one 
dollar  a  load.  The  Philistine  is  its  well-known  organ,  and  its  opin- 
ions are  certainly  unique,  reeking  with  individuality  and  with  rol- 
licking independence.  Douglas  Cockerell,^  who  learned  his  craft 
under  Sanderson,  has  published  a  fascinating  volume  calculated  to 
make  everyone  desire  to  drop  everything  else  and  become  a  book- 
binder. 

In  his  famous  oration  on  the  lost  arts,^  Wendell  Phillips  sought 
to  modify  our  Fourth  of  July  spirit  by  urging  that  in  art  the  really 
great  masters  are  all  dead  and  that  no  modern  compares  with 
Homer,  Phidias,  Raphael,  and  Shakespeare.  He  quotes  Dunlop,  who 
says  that  in  all  nations  there  are  only  about  250  to  300  distinct 
stories.  He  names  even  many  well-known  jokes  that  he  is  able  to 
trace  back  for  centuries,  some  of  them  to  classical  antiquity;  tells 
us  that  in  Pompeii  we  find  ground,  colored,  and  common  window 
glass;  that  the  Chinese  had  a  colorless  glass  which,  when  filled  with 
a  colorless  fluid,  seemed  to  be  full  of  fish;  that  a  Roman  in  the 
day  of  St.  Paul  had  a  glass  cup  which,  when  dashed  to  the  pave- 
ment and  dented,  could  be  hammered  into  shape;  that  besides  this 
malleable  glass  there  was  another  specimen  which,  hung  up  by  one 
end,  would  dwindle  to  a  thread  and  become  as  flexible  as  wool ;  in 
Rome  they  made  a  solid  bit  of  glass  in  the  center  of  which  was  a 
colored  drop  which  must  have  been  poured  into  it,  which  was  as 
large  as  a  pea,  finely  mottled  with  shifting  hues;  the  vase  of  Genoa 
was  a  soHd  emerald,  said  to  have  been  the  Queen  of  Sheba's  gift  to 
Solomon  and  used  by  our  Savior  at  the  Last  Supper,  and  which 
Napoleon  brought  to  France;  Cicero  said  he  saw  the  entire  Iliad 
written  on  a  skin  rolled  to  the  compass  of  a  nut  shell;  could  this 
have  been  photography?  Nero  had  a  ring  with  a  gem  which  he 
used  as  an  opera  glass ;  Bunsen  tells  of  a  signet  ring  from  Cheops  so 
finely  engraved  that  the  inscription  is  invisible  except  with  a 
strong  glass;  Phillips  knew  a  man  who  had  a  ring  with  a  stone 
three  fourths  of  an  inch  in  diameter  with  the  naked  figure  of 
Hercules,  in  which  with  glasses  you  could  tell  every  muscle  and 
count  the  hairs  on  the  eyebrows,  which  must  have  been  made  with 
a  magnifying  glass;  the  old  Tyrian  colors  are  so  permanent  that 
they  flame  up  now  when  unearthed ;  a  Cashmere  shawl  worth  $30,000 
is  described,  with  300  distinct  hues  and  colors  which  the  best 
dyers  in  Europe  can  hardly  distinguish.  When  the  English  plun- 
dered the  Summer  Palace  of  the  Emperor  of  China,  they  found 
wrought  metal  vases  of  many  kinds  far  beyond  European  skill;  the 

^  Book  Binding  and  the  Care  of  Books.    Lond.,  Hogg,  1901.    342  p. 
^  Bost.,  1888. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  557 

Damascus  blades  of  the  Crusaders,  though  not  gilded,  are  as  bright 
as  they  were  eight  centuries  ago ;  there  was  one  at  the  London  exhi- 
bition, "  the  point  of  which  could  be  made  to  touch  the  hilt "  and 
which  could  be  put  into  its  scabbard  like  a  corkscrew;  the  London 
watchmakers  found  the  best  steel,  not  in  Sheffield,  but  in  the  Pun- 
jab; the  first  needle  made  in  England  was  by  a  negro  in  the  time  of 
Henry  VIII,  and  when  he  died  his  art  died  with  him;  the  first 
African  travelers  found  a  tribe  in  the  interior  who  gave  them  better 
razors  than  they  knew.  Walter  Scott  describes  Richard  Coeur  de 
Lion  as  severing  a  bar  of  iron,  whereupon  Saladin  took  an  eider- 
down pillow  and  cut  it  in  two  with  his  sword,  and  then  threw  up 
the  lightest  scarf  in  the  air  and  severed  it  before  it  descended;  a 
Hindoo  in  Calcutta  threw  a  handful  of  floss  silk  into  the  air  and  cut 
it  in  several  pieces  before  it  touched  the  ground;  it  was  thought  a 
triumph  in  the  sixteenth  century  to  have  set  up  the  obelisk  in  Rome 
on  one  end,  yet  the  Egyptians  quarried  it  and  carried  it  150  miles; 
the  capital  of  Pompey's  pillar  is  100  feet  high  and  weighs  2,000 
pounds.  Arago  thinks  that  the  railroad  dates  back  to  Egypt,  and 
that  the  Egyptians  knew  steam ;  the  Duchess  of  Burgundy  took  a 
necklace  from  a  muiilmy  and  wore  it  to  a  ball  in  the  Tuileries  and 
everyone  marveled;  a  Hindoo  princess  was  sent  home  from  court  by 
her  father  because  she  was  not  decently  covered,  but  she  said, 
"  Father,  I  have  seven  muslin  suits  on."  ^ 

The  true  craftsman  should  always  have  in  mind  the  praise  and 
blame  not  of  the  masses  but  of  the  master.  This  ought  not  to  be 
hard  when  one  is  young  and  able  to  see  the  good  in  everything. 
Plant  forms,  wings  of  birds,  butterflies,  and  hedgerows  can  be 
sources  of  suggestive  inspiration  and  motives  of  design.  Craftsmen 
must  fight  against  dreary  monotony  in  both  conception  and  execution. 
Psychology  cannot  explain  the  strange  deep  satisfaction  that  is 
caused  by,  e.  g.,  a  copper  coal-hod  hammered  into  artistic  form,  a 
candlestick,  jug,  key,  screen,  andirons,  lampshade,  brooch,  pendant, 
setting  for  a  precious  stone,  enamel  work,  tile  panel,  designs  in 
wood,  bookbinding  or  any  kind  of  surface  or  relief  that  expresses 


'  It  should  be  mentioned  that  the  more  artistic  lines  of  development  which  also 
motivated  the  arts  and  crafts  movement  were,  strangely  enough,  given  a  curious 
set-back  by  the  allegiance  of  Oscar  Wilde  and  the  caricature  of  the  affectations  of 
this  movement  by  the  Gilbert-Sullivan  opera  "Patience,"  which  ridiculed  its 
symbolisms  as  not  genuine.  The  stained  glass  attitudes  in  which  the  dragoons 
twist  themselves,  the  contortions  of  the  soulful  maidens  in  the  chorus  with  their 
devitalized  arms  and  sinuous  bodies  that  waved  and  writhed  in  love  "with  a  four- 
teenth-century Florentine  frenzy,"  was  directed  against  Bume- Jones,  the  son 
of  a  small  shopkeeper,  who  was  dreamy  and  really  feminine  in  his  nature.  The 
parody  on  Morris  was  the  pale  olive,  peacock  blue  and  pomegranate  garb  of  the 
crushed  Bunthom  and  his  admiring  bevy.  Rossetti  was  the  target  in  the  revival  of 
obsolete  meter  forms  where  sound  overpowers  scn.sc.  The  whole  movement  was 
made  to  appear  as  mere  prc-Raphaelite  mannerism  and  {x-ttincss. 


5S8  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

anything  whatever  that  is  new  and  tasteful,  even  though  it  be  only  an 
amateur's  work.  If  we  could  only  learn  that  "  that  is  best  which  lieth 
nearest "  and  that  genius  consists  often  in  simply  finding  the  easiest 
and  most  natural  way,  so  that  the  marvel  is  that  it  was  not  seen  and 
realized  before — this  would  teach  us  how,  as  Keats  said,  "  Beauty 
is  truth  and  truth  beauty."  Perhaps  we  ought  also  to  understand 
the  truth  in  Ruskin's  statement  that  there  is  more  genius  in  spending 
money  discriminatingly  than  in  acquiring  it.  The  end  is  to  utter 
one's  self,  objectify  what  is  in  one's  mind.  The  true  artist  knows  less 
about  even  his  own  method  than  anyone.  If  he  tries  to  tell  how, 
he  makes  sorry,  clumsy  work  of  explaining  himself.  Thus  the 
canons  and  rules  and  all  that  the  prowling  pedants  can  do  is  simply 
to  follow  after  the  man  dowered  with  a  happy  facility.  Nothing  is 
good  and  true  not  marked  by  the  author's  personal  quality;  and  this 
cannot  be  analyzed  or  accounted  for.  Such  an  ideal  should  hover 
over  all  skilled  labor  and  inspire  with  self-confidence,  for  that  is  the 
secret  of  all  originality.  No  one  can  gauge  his  own  capacities 
aright  till  after  a  long  series  of  efforts  to  express  his  own  ego;  but 
the  joyous,  epochful  moment  comes  when,  starting  with  a  meager 
idea,  it  unfolds  into  something  of  greater  worth  that  fits  and  utters 
the  inmost  self. 

The  arts  and  crafts  literature  is  voluminous  and  includes  many 
Utopias  in  prose  and  poetry,  all  the  way  from  Bellamy  to  Tolstoy 
and  Kropotkin,  and  its  attempted  realizations  range  from  Brook 
Farm  and  endless  cooperative  if  not  communistic  organizations  to 
Saint  George's  Gild  and  the  Essex  House  and  Gild  of  Mr. 
Ashbee.  It  proclaims  not  so  much  the  Gospel  as  the  Apocalypse 
of  a  new  industrialism  which  is  to  be  evolved  on  principles  far 
higher  than  current  economics.  Cost  is  the  quality  and  quantity 
of  work  that  is  put  into  a  product.  Price  is  what  it  commands 
in  exchange  with  others.  Wages  are  what  will  keep  the  artisans 
up  to  the  top  of  their  condition  and  most  fecund  in  bringing 
new  things  into  existence.  The  movement  is  socialistic  and  awaits 
a  new  order  of  things  in  which  privilege  and  competition  and 
great  lords  of  industry  who  treat  workmen  as  machines  shall  be 
done  away  with  and  artificial  poverty  shall  cease.  "  Life  without 
industry  is  guilt,  and  industry  without  art  is  brutality."  It  proclaims 
a  true  commonwealth  which  will  one  day  control  all  means  of  pro- 
duction. Those  who  live  in  its  cycle  of  thought  want  the  book 
beautiful,  the  fabric,  house,  furniture,  dress,  etc.,  beautiful,  and  a 
new  society  composed  of  those  who  make  their  work  art  and  love  it 
rather  than  coerced  toilers  anxious  only  to  do  the  least  in  the  least 
time  and  get  the  most  cash  for  it  and  hie  to  the  saloon  and  brothel, 
since  drudgery  will  inevitably  seek  recompense  in  pleasure  and  all 
who  hate  work  are  prone  to  dissipation.  Every  workman  should 
express  some  trait  of  his  or  her  individuality  at  least  in  minor  arts, 
while  use  and  beauty  should  at  every  point  be  united.  The  work- 
shop is  at  once  a  school,  a  factory,  and  a  state  in  which  all  are 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  559 

citizens  and  colleagues.  It  illustrates  the  true  comradeship  of  ap- 
prenticeship and  master  workman  and  arbiter  or  guide.  The  greater 
pleasure  and  enhancement  of  life  is  the  end  of  art;  to  get  a  living 
is  to  gain  more  hope,  love,  and  admiration,  for  these  augment  life. 
Each  shop  should  be  a  studio.  Every  work  should  show  the  applica- 
tion of  a  personal  touch,  at  least  in  the  form  of  decoration,  and  all 
should  strive  to  render  social  service  by  producing  a  perfect  product. 
We  must  love  our  work  as  if  it  were  play,  be  proud  of  what  we 
make  because  our  life  has  gone  into  it.  Art  and  daily  life  must  be 
united.  Each  in  the  industrial  new  republic,  too,  will  own  a  house 
that  he  made  and  which  fits  and  expresses  himself,  and  some  land 
about  it  that  he  may  touch  the  soil  and  raise  something.  If  the' 
wages  of  all  noble  work  are  in  heaven,  as  Carlyle  said,  we  draw 
near  to  the  celestial  in  so  far  as  we  make  all  laborers  artists  and  all 
artists  laborers.  Triggs  well  says  *  that  this  idea  will  be  realized 
about  the  time  that  Plato's  ideal  is,  that  philosophers  shall  be  kings 
and  kings  philosophers.  Work  is  a  blessed  privilege  and  its  true 
and  best  product  is  a  joy  forever,  for  it  brings  the  full  fruition,  than 
which  nothing  is  greater,  of  original  creation,  of  something  which 
the  world  never  saw  before.  This  movement  is  a  splendid  iridescent 
solution  of  present  troubles,  but  it  is  too  ideal  for  the  rank  and  file 
of  men  to-day.  It  may  well  attract  the  elite  craftsmen  who  can 
inaugurate  it  here  and  there  in  a  small  way,  but  alas !  the  regenera- 
tion of  society  which  it  seeks  is  at  least  remote  and  few  of  us  will 
live  to  see  such  an  industrial  millennium.  So  while  we  may  bid  it  the 
heartiest  of  Godspeeds  and  pray  for  the  coming  of  its  kingdom,  if 
we  pray  at  all  we  must  turn  to  nearer  and  more  immediately  prac- 
tical, if  less  comprehensive,  methods  of  industrial  education. 

The  causes  of  the  dedine  of  this,  in  many  respects,  splendid 
system  to  the  attenuated  relict  of  the  apprentice  system  is  a 
very  complex  and  much  mooted  question.  The  chief  causes 
are  probably  the  following: 

(a)  The  specialization  of  many  industries  make  it  more 
immediately  imperative  for  lx)th  employer  and  employee  that 
the  latter  should  focus  on  one  process  and  become  master  in 
a  small  part  of  a  trade,  the  re.st  being  of  no  direct  use.  Where 
there  are  many  processes  it  would  require  one  expert  to  teach 
each  most  effectively,  and  this  would  be  too  expensive. 
Again,  where  piece  work  prevails,  every  moment  a  workman 
spends  in  teaching  a  novice  is  lost  time  so  far  as  his  own 
wages  are  concerned.     One  who  wishes  to  change  from  one 

'  O.  L.Triggs.  Chapters  in  The  History  of  Arts  and  Crafts  Movement.    Chicago, 
1902.    T98  p. 


56o  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

machine  to  another  that  he  has  seen  a  httle  of,  goes  to  a  new 
shop,  puts  in  practice  what  he  has  observed,  until  the  foreman 
comes  around,  sees  his  lack  of  skill  and  discharges  him.  If 
he  persists,  he  goes  to  the  next  shop  and  holds  a  similar  job 
a  little  longer.  Hanus  knows  one  man  who  repeated  this 
nineteen  times.  This,  few  will  do — it  is  stealing  a  trade.  In 
a  large  tailoring  establishment,  39  men  make  a  coat,  and  in 
a  printing  plant  there  are  about  a  dozen  trades.  To  make  the 
70th  part  of  a  shoe  hardly  takes  the  70th  part  of  a  man,  and 
nobody  can  perform  all  the  processes.  J.  Skiffington  stated 
that  he  left  his  employer  nine  times  in  seven  years  before  he 
had  learned  his  trade. 

(b)  Machinery  in  some  industries  requires  only  tending, 
and  needs  little  intelligence  or  skill,  so  that  there  is  not  much 
to  learn.  Where  a  raw  hand  can  learn  to  operate  an  auto- 
matic or  slot  machine  in  a  few  hours,  weeks,  or  months,  and 
attain  his  or  her  maximal  efficiency,  there  is  no  need  of  ap- 
prenticeship and  no  individual  training  is  of  much  service.  I 
know  a  large  concern  employing  many  hundred  girls,  which 
practically  takes  all  who  come.  They  look  on  and  imitate 
those  next  them,  make  the  few  simple  manipulations  easily, 
and  are  paid  according  to  the  number  of  articles  they  run 
through  their  gear ;  and  at  the  end  of  a  week  a  rapid  girl  often 
earns  as  much  as  slower  ones  who  have  been  at  it  for  years. 

(c)  Foreign  skilled  labor  has  been  so  available  that  it  is 
cheaper  to  import  it  than  to  train  it  here.  J.  A.  W.  Logan, 
of  Utah,  estimates  that  50  per  cent  of  our  skilled  artisans  are 
foreign-born  and  trained.  The  committee  of  the  National 
Association  of  Manufacturers  (1908,  p.  17)  estimates  that 
66  per  cent,  the  New  York  Statistical  Bureau  that  60  per  cent, 
Chicago  that  70  per  cent,  Pittsburg  that  75  per  cent,  the  Bul- 
letin of  the  National  Education  Association  for  Industrial 
Education  (1908)  that  50  per  cent  of  the  skilled  mechanics, 
and  90  per  cent  of  the  foremen  were  trained  in  Europe.  It 
is  of  no  economic  significance  to  employers  that  native-born 
Americans  are  more  commonly  found  in  only  the  half-skilled 
employments,  or  that,  as  H.  Dooley  estimates,  99  per  cent  of 
the  overseers  in  the  Lawrence,  Mass.,  mills  were  trained 
abroad;  or  that,  as  the  National  Education  Association  Com- 
mittee on  Industrial  Education  says,  "  only  about  2  per  cent 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  561 

can  be  provided  with  an  opportunity  to  learn  trades  here,  the 
other  98  per  cent  remaining  unskilled."  As  long  as  Europe 
will  train  enough,  and  as  long  as  they  will  then  come  over 
and  bring  their  skill  ready-made  to  us,  why  go  to  the  trouble 
and  expense  to  train  them  here? 

(d)  An  apprentice  system  must  involve  some  guarantee 
that  boys  who  begin  will  stay  long  enough  to  become  profit- 
able, as  at  first  they  usually  involve  expense.  This  makes 
needful  some  system,  if  not  of  indenture  or  binding  out,  at 
least  the  surety  of  a  pledge  of  honor  on  the  part  of  the  par- 
ents or  of  the  boy,  or  both,  that  he  will  stay  on  for  a  term  of 
years.  This,  some  states  now  make  illegal.  Moreover,  their 
parents  are  reluctant  to  give  such  a  pledge  and,  owing  to  the 
early  emancipation  of  our  youth  from  home  control,  the  par- 
ents would  be  unable  to  do  it  effectively  if  they  desired.  To 
the  American  boy  it  often  seems  somewhat  like  a  modified 
contract  system  of  servitude;  he  feels  the  time  required  to 
get  his  trade  far  too  long — and  naturally,  when  a  man  can 
be  taken  oflf  the  street  and  put  in  his  place  and  in  two  months 
earn  as  much  as  it  has  taken  him  three  or  five  years  to  learn 
to  do.  Moreover,  learning  a  trade  does  not  mean  certainty 
of  a  job.  Chiefly,  however,  he  wants  a  wide-open  world,  and 
is  sure  that  somewhere,  sometime,  a  clean  way  to  success  will 
open  up  to  him  of  itself.  The  very  apprentice  system  idea 
is  foreign  to  his  nature.  His  chance  is  sure  to  come  and  Fate 
and  Fortune  may  shake  their  choicest  fruits  into  his  lap  in 
time,  at  least  he  wants  to  look  about  for  himself  and  see  if 
he  cannot  hit  a  good  trail  or  strike  a  paying  vein.  He  pre- 
fers to  sample  the  world  at  several  points,  for  never  was 
the  gambling  spirit  of  trying  for  luck  so  strong.  He  pre- 
fers to  find,  rather  than  to  make,  his  way,  and  feels  it  his 
ineluctable  right  to  do  so.  What  the  boy  wants,  rather  than 
what  the  father  says,  in  this  country  too  often  goes.  Often 
he  will  not  learn  a  trade  because  he  sees  from  a  distance,  and 
perhaps  has  felt  from  contact  with  it.  the  utterly  dcailcning, 
stupid  monotony  of  it  all,  and  this  repels  him.  Again,  the 
big  concern  knows  no  personal  relations ;  and  this  is  just  what 
the  boy  both  needs  and  wants.  Apprentices  make  but  little, 
for  it  is  said  that  in  the  last  forty  years,  wages  of  first-year 
apprentices  have  not  increased,  while  those  of  all  kinds  of 
87 


S62  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

labor  have  done  so.  In  some  cases  doubtless,  too,  the  Trade 
Unions  have  too  much  restricted  the  number  of  apprentices, 
especially  where  trades  readily  take  in  those  of  foreign  birth. 
So,  too,  apprentice  boys  are  often  under  the  rules  of  the 
Union  and,  if  there  is  a  strike,  must  join  it;  and  this  is  one 
reason  why  not  only  employers  but  eligible  candidates  for 
apprenticeship  are  not  very  cordial  to  it.  Moreover,  employ- 
ers too  often  refuse  to  take  apprentices  under  i6;  and  this 
is  unquestionably  a  little  past  the  psychological  age  for  appren- 
ticeship. 

((?)  Where  the  apprenticeship  system  exists  in  this  coun- 
try, it  is  rather  as  a  revival  and  under  changed  conditions, 
so  that  it  is  not  what  it  was.  Employers  who  use  it,  too,  are 
prone  to  be  shortsighted,  narrow,  and  selfish,  perhaps  without 
meaning  to  be  so,  because  they  have  not  only  not  fully  real- 
ized all  the  possibilities  of  the  system  for  themselves,  but  still 
less  risen  to  see  all  their  duties  in  this  regard ;  although  some 
now  state  that  so  great  is  their  need  of  skilled  labor  that  with 
it  their  output  might  be  doubled.  The  modern  captain  of  in- 
dustry has  not  been  entirely  successful  in  his  efforts  to  stand 
in  loco  parentis. 

The  Pullman  experiment  is  well  known.  Pelzer,  N.  C,  which 
in  1881  consisted  of  a  log  cabin,  now  has  6,000  or  8,000  in- 
habitants, the  lives  and  destinies  of  all  being  in  the  hands  of 
an  industrial  corporation  administered  as  a  very  enlightened  in- 
dustrial absolutism.  There  is  no  time  nor  money  for  municipal 
elections  and  everything  is  done  for  the  welfare  of  the  inhabitants 
that  is  consistent  with  profits.  The  school  is  built  not  by,  but  for, 
the  children  and  keeps  ten  months.  All  sign  an  agreement  that  their 
children  shall  attend  from  five  to  twelve  years  of  age.  Ignorance 
does  not  make  good  producers,  so  schooling  is  profitable.  There  is 
a  lyceum,  library,  occasional  lectures,  military  organizations,  baseball 
clubs,  prizes  for  school  attendance  and  for  the  most  attractive  yard 
and  cottage.  There  is  no  home  ownership  as  the  company  sells  no 
property.  This  would  prevent  roving,  but  now,  with  2  weeks'  notice 
on  either  side,  anyone  can  go.  Not  until  12  can  children  work. 
The  paternalism  here  is  less  absolute  than  at  Pullman.  There  is  no 
proper  apprenticeship  here,  but  such  instances  impress  the  lesson 
that  manufacturers  should  not  as  a  class  be  alone  intrusted  with 
the  industrial  education  of  the  boys  and  girls  in  their  shops  and 
mills,  indispensable  as  they  are  as  coadjutors.  The  state  should 
rarely  entirely  relinquish  its  right  at  least  to  have  a  hand  in  the 
education  of  all  its  future  citizens,  because  men  and  women  are 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  563 

more  than  producers.  In  fact,  the  same  causes  that  led  employers 
to  neglect  the  apprentice  system  decades  ago  and  allow  it  to  decay 
until  lately,  still  operate  even  if  happily  with  growing  amelioration. 
Producers  must  think  of  profits  and  so  incline  to  too  short  courses. 

(/)  The  Labor  Unions  have  sometimes  enforced  restric- 
tions upon  the  apprentice  system  that  make  it  onerous  for  cor- 
porations. The  census  of  1900  gives  a  total  of  18,482  ap- 
prentices and  helpers  in  16  trades,  constituting  2.45  per  cent 
of  the  total  number  of  employees.  The  highest  proportion 
was  5.8  per  cent  among  machinists,  5.7  per  cent  among 
plumbers,  gas  and  steam  fitters,  and  6.7  in  other  miscellaneous 
industries.  In  the  building  trades  in  Massachusetts,  1.3  per 
cent  are  apprentices.  A  study  by  the  American  Social  Science 
Association  shows  that  of  48  Trade  Unions  with  a  member- 
ship of  500,000,  28  (membership  220,000)  place  no  restric- 
tion upon  apprenticeship;  while  10  Unions  (membership  107,- 
000)  place  the  limits  variously  ranging  from  i  to  15  per  cent; 
the  remaining  10  leaving  the  question  of  apprenticeship  with 
the  locality.  A  delegate  lately  interviewed  600  master-paint- 
ers and  found  that  i  in  15  had  an  apprentice.  The  larger 
the  shop,  the  greater  the  dislike  to  teaching  boys.  The  Mas- 
sachusetts Commissioner  of  Labor  reports  (1906)  that  in  that 
state  the  percentage  of  apprentices  in  closed,  was  no  less  than 
in  open  shops.  Adams  and  Sumner  ^  point  out  that  only  i 
strike  in  300  has  grown  out  of  the  apprentice  system.  Ben- 
son reported  as  a  result  of  the  St.  Louis  experiment  that 
Labor  Union  apprenticeship  rules  in  19  trades  allowed  i  ap- 
prentice to  8  journeymen,  the  largest  number  being  among 
electric  workers,  i  to  3,  the  smallest  in  glass  blowing,  i  to  15. 
Of  course,  journeymen  do  not  like  to  train  apprentices  who 
are  liable  to  take  their  place.  In  general  it  would  seem  that 
the  ratio  of  i  apprentice  to  4  journeymen  in  most  trades 
would  not  be  excessive. 

The  attempts  to  revive  the  apprentice  system  are  of  great 
interest,  but  this  will  probably  always  be  limited  to  a  few 
lines  of  business.  C.  A,  Howe  found  that  of  400  Ohio  manu- 
facturers, less  than  65  had  any  kind  of  apprentice  system. 

'  Thomas  S.  Adams  and  Helen  L.  Sumner.    Labor  Problems.    New  York,  Mac- 
millan  Co.,  1905.    579  p.    See  p.  439. 


564  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

and  only  3  turned  out  finished  workmen.  The  Massachusetts 
Bureau  of  Labor  circulated  the  question,  "  Is  there  an  ap- 
prentice system  in  your  trade?"  Thirty-one  employers  and 
55  Labor  Unions  said  yes  and  44  no.  Many  firms  require 
a  common  school  education.  Apprentices  are  often  put  in 
charge  of  the  foreman,  who  may  be  a  foreigner.  E.  A.  Ste- 
vens found  a  New  York  town  of  6,000  where  only  i  boy 
was  learning  a  trade  and  2  helping  their  fathers.  In  another 
city  a  sign  factory  with  200  men  had  14  apprentices,  a  pulley 
factory,  and  a  clock  factory  with  a  large  number  of  employees 
had  none.  As  to  the  comparative  value  of  daily  training  in 
tool  work  in  the  later  grammar  grades  with  apprenticeship  in 
the  shop,  many  opinions  are  quoted  both  ways.  Surely  a  vig- 
orous boy  of  14  should  not  be  prevented  from  entering  a  trade. 
The  committee  on  industrial  education  in  the  National  Associa- 
tion of  Manufacturers  recommends  a  high  grade  trade  school 
in  cities  of  30,000,  that  all  these  should  turn  out  full-fledged 
journeymen,  and  that  the  apprentice  system  should  not  be 
allowed. 

As  a  basis  for  discussion  and  with  the  help,  for  this  coun- 
try, of  Mr.  George  H.  Steves,  I  have  gathered  from  many 
sources  and  from  personal  correspondence  with  nearly  200 
people,  representing  various  aspects  of  the  subject,  data  con- 
cerning the  following  typical  recent  departures,  revised  where 
possible  to  date  (Summer  of  1910). 

Professor  Schneider,  of  the  University  of  Cincinnati,  was  the 
pioneer  of  a  new  movement  when  he  estabhshed  the  plan  of  the 
engineering  school  of  that  institution  where  the  classes  are  divided 
into  two  sections  that  alternate  so  that  one  is  in  the  university  and  the 
other  is  in  one  of  the  electrical  shops  in  the  city.  They  begin  with 
the  foundry,  pass  to  the  machine  shop,  then  are  in  the  commutator 
and  comptroller's  office,  the  winding,  testing,  and  erecting  depart- 
ments, then  in  the  drafting  room  and  the  office — thus  following  the 
raw  material  until  the  product  is  sold.  A  legal  contract  is  made 
and  signed  by  shop,  student,  and  university.  In  the  shop  the  pay 
is  10  cents  an  hour  and  increases  at  the  rate  of  a  cent  an  hour  each 
6  months,  so  that  they  earn  about  $1,800  during  the  course.  All 
must  enter  the  shop  during  the  summer  preceding  their  entrance  to 
college.  The  first  year,  1906,  60  inquired,  40  went  to  the  shops,  20 
remained  and  entered  the  university  in  the  fall.  The  second  year 
800  inquired  or  applied,  60  were  selected  for  the  shops  in  July,  44 
remained.     The  third  year  the  applications  were  about  2,000.     This 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  565 

is  returning  to  the  old  apprentice  system  with  definite  instruction 
attached.  It  adds  little  to  the  cost.  This  movement,  of  course,  as- 
sumes that  the  very  first  duty  in  training  for  citizenship  is  to  make 
young  people  self-supporting.  The  logic  of  the  situation  points  to  a 
broad,  new  plan  of  cooperation  between  the  schools  and  industries.' 

The  Milwaukee  School  of  Trades.  In  February,  1904,  a  business 
man,  F.  W.  Syvier,  urged  before  the  Merchants  and  Mechanics 
Association  the  need  of  industrial  education,  and  asked  public  sup- 
port. In  January,  1906,  a  school  was  opened.  It  soon  grew  beyond 
the  power  of  this  association  to  support  it,  and  so  a  special  legisla- 
ture passed  a  remarkable  bill  widely  read  and  copied,  under  which  an 
added  school  tax  was  levied  to  support  the  school;  and  in  July,  1907, 
the  entire  equipment  was  deeded  to  the  city.  Students  admitted  must 
be  16,  able  to  read,  write,  and  cipher.  Eighth-grade  graduates  enter 
without  examination.  A  preparatory  course  is  contemplated.  There 
is  a  large  three-story  building  144  x  50  feet.  The  school  is  free  to 
residents,  but  costs  the  city  $225  a  year  per  pupil.  There  are  4 
trades:  pattern  making,  machinist  and  tool  making,  carpentry  and 
woodworking,  plumbing  and  gas  fitting.  Plumbing  requires  i,  but  the 
other  courses  2  years  of  52  weeks  per  year  and  44  hours  a  week,  clos- 
ing only  for  legal  holidays.  The  conditions  of  the  special  trades  are 
reproduced  as  exactly  as  possible  so  that  the  boys  work  under  shop 
conditions.  Each  is  advanced  on  his  merits  and  not  held  back  by 
the  slower  boys.  Material  is  charged  for:  about  $4  or  $5  a  month, 
payable  monthly.  There  is  a  month's  probation  on  entering;  good 
physical  condition  is  required;  and  sickness  is  the  only  excuse  for 
absence.  The  school  does  not  turn  out  journeymen,  but  claims  to  be 
equivalent  to  a  4-years'  apprenticeship.  All  work  is  done  from 
drawings.  Tobacco  is  tabooed.  Working  hours  are  from  8  to  12 
and  I  to  5 — 14,464  hours  in  all.  Each  trade  is  equipped  for  25 
students,  except  the  machine  shop,  which  can  take  40.  The  equip- 
ment is  of  the  highest  possible  grade  with  a  long  list  of  machinery. 
The  diploma  is  given  whenever  the  course  is  complete,  and  time 
may  be  saved  by  ability  and  diligence.  The  grade  corresponds  with 
the  pay  the  graduate  will  receive  when  he  becomes  a  journeyman. 
The  school  is  under  an  advisory  committee  of  5  citizens,  not  mem- 
bers of  the  school  board,  who  are  experienced  in  one  or  more  of 
the  trades,  but  appointed  by  the  president  of  the  school  board.  They 
prepare  courses  and  purchase  supplies.  A  special  tax  not  exceeding 
half  a  mill  on  the  total  assessment  of  the  city  may  be  levied.  Non- 
residents and  those  over  20  pay  $15  a  montli  for  the  day.  and  $4  a 
month  for  the  night  classes,  which  is  slightly  under  cost.  One 
quarter  of  the  time  is  given  to  academic  work. 

The  Baron  dc  Hirsch  School  is  a  short-course  trade  school.  In- 
structors are  largely   foremen.     There  arc  2  classes  per  year  of  5 

'  H.  Schneider.  Partial  Time  Trade  Schools.  Annals  of  Amcr.  .\rad.  of  Pol 
and  Soc.  Sci.,  1909,  vol.  t,^,  pp.  50-55.    • 


S66  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

months  each.  Day  classes  are  8  hours  each,  or  800  working  hours  to 
the  course.  The  academic  side  of  instruction  is  mechanical  and  free- 
hand drawing,  shop  arithmetic,  illustrated  lectures  on  the  theories 
and  principles  of  the  trade,  and  shop  instruction  in  actual  perform- 
ance with  stress  on  speed.  Each  pupil  is  a  probationer  for  2  weeks 
to  show  whether  he  has  sufficient  maturity  and  physical  ability.  The 
minimum  age  is  16.  There  are  frequent  tests  and  examinations. 
Classes  are  admitted  in  February  and  August.  Applicants  must  be 
Jews  who  can  speak  and  write  English.  Some  60  per  cent  are,  in 
fact,  immigrants.  There  are  no  fees,  but  applicants  must  show  that 
they  have  means  of  self-support.  About  90  per  cent  of  all  are  wage 
earners  before  entrance,  so  that  the  sacrifice  of  wage  is  the  test  of 
earnestness.  The  trades  are :  machinist,  carpentry,  electrical  work, 
plumbing,  sign  painting;  and  the  academic  instruction  is  designed 
to  help  the  practical  occupations.  Stress  is  laid  on  teaching  pupils 
to  read  drawings  rather  than  to  make  them.  About  84  per  cent  re- 
main through  the  course  and  about  80  per  cent  have  found  employ- 
ment in  the  trades  here  learned.  The  average  wage  of  200  before 
their  entrance  was  $5.39  per  week;  their  average  immediately  after 
graduation  was  $7.54  per  week;  while  some  started  in  at  $15  per 
week.  Mr.  Yaldan,  the  superintendent,  found  by  circular  inquiry 
that  the  quality  of  the  recruits  of  the  industrial  army  was  deteriora- 
ting and  that  manual  training  was  a  failure.  The  census  showed 
that  60  per  cent  of  the  employees  in  manufacturing  and  mechanical 
pursuits  were  foreigners  or  of  foreign  parentage,  and  the  children 
of  natives  mostly  left  school  before  the  completion  of  the  grades. 
From  this  school,  hundreds  are  turned  away  each  year  for  lack  of 
accommodations,  and  those  who  go  make  sacrifice  in  the  hope  of 
future  gain  and  are  carefully  selected.  Evening  classes  are  objected 
to  here  because  with  a  course  of  some  22  weeks  a  3-years'  course 
is  necessary  to  give  the  equivalent  of  a  5-months'  course.  More- 
over, no  sacrifice  is  required,  and  those  who  have  worked  during 
the  day  are  not  in  the  best  condition. 

The  Vocational  School  at  Springfield,  Mass.,  was  opened  in 
September,  1909,  for  boys  of  14  and  over  who  had  finished  the 
seventh  grade  of  the  9-year  system  and  who  wished  to  learn  a 
mechanical  trade.  The  school  aims  to  prepare  boys  to  become  jour- 
neymen after  serving  an  apprenticeship  when  necessary.  The  school 
is  in  session  6  hours  a  day  for  5  days  in  the  week,  closing  Saturday 
noon.  During  the  first  year  the  academic  work  is  in  the  morning, 
shop  work  in  the  afternoon.  Two  teachers,  one  skilled  in  wood  and 
the  other  in  iron,  are  employed  to  teach  a  group  of  25  boys  each. 
Academic  work  is  affiliated  with  that  of  the  shop. 

The  New  Bedford  Industrial  School  is  of  high  school  grade  and 
free.  In  order  to  enter,  a  boy  must  be  14  and  have  a  grammar 
school  education  or  its  equivalent.  All  are  strongly  urged,  but  not 
required,  to  finish  the  grammar  course.  This  school  fits  not  for 
college  nor  for  scientific  schools.     The  first  2  years  are  the  same. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  567 

The  last  2  years  are  devoted  to  applied  science,  drafting,  shop  work, 
wood  and  other  matters  and  the  course  in  operating  automobiles.  It 
will  keep  closely  in  touch  with  employers  so  that  openings  may  be 
made  known  to  graduates. 

The  Hebrew  Technical  Institute  of  New  York  (1884)  fits  for 
mechanical  trades,  but  primarily  for  higher  technical  institutions. 
The  minimum  age  of  admission  is  12^.  The  average  age  of  ap- 
plicants is  nearly  14.  They  must  be  residents  of  New  York  and 
take  examinations  to  the  seventh  B  grade  of  the  public  school.  It  is 
preferred  to  have  applicants  who  have  completed  the  grammar 
school.  All  must  submit  to  a  physical  examination  and  furnish 
testimonials  both  of  ability  and  character.  Tools,  books,  tuition,  are 
free.  Lunches  are  2  cents  a  day  or  10  cents  per  week.  Shower 
baths  are  free,  and  swimming  is  required.  School  is  in  session  5 
days  a  week,  vacation  the  first  2  weeks  of  July  and  the  first  3  of 
August,  with  half-day  sessions  during  the  summer.  There  are  even- 
ing schools  for  men,  who  must  be  19,  and  pay  $1  a  month  for  ap- 
paratus. All  must  intend  to  complete  the  course  and  bring  excuses 
for  absence  or  tardiness ;  and  there  are  monthly  reports  of  attend- 
ance, progress,  and  character  sent  to  the  parents.  There  is  a  ref- 
erence and  circulating  library.  The  Hebrew  Sheltering  Guardian 
Society  and  Orphan  Asylum  and  Educational  Alliance  maintain 
preparatory  classes  which  fit  for  the  second  year.  All  take  the  same 
course,  which  is  more  general,  the  first  year,  and  those  without 
mechanical  aptitudes  or  physically  unfit  withdraw.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  third  year,  students  are  advised  to  choose  some  trade 
and  specialize.  Useful  articles  are  made  and  conditions  are  as  near 
as  possible  those  of  a  shop.  Much  is  done  from  blue  prints.  Some 
mathematics,  physics,  mechanics,  electricity,  are  taught,  and  shop 
work,  including  drawing,  occupies  in  the  first  year  16,  and  in  the 
second  18,  hours  a  week.  In  1907-8  there  were  288  day  students, 
and  84  graduated  from  the  3-year  course.  The  cost  per  pupil  is  a 
little  over  $100  a  year.  Seventy-five  per  cent  of  the  graduates  fol- 
low the  trades  learned  here. 

The  Fitchburg  plan  was  suggested  by  the  metal  trades  which 
found  it  hard  to  obtain  recruits.  They  studied  the  Schneider  method 
of  Cincinnati  for  university  students  and  adapted  it  to  those  of  high 
school  grade  with  a  4-ycar  course.  There  is  a  2-months'  probation 
in  the  summer  before  the  school  opens  to  weed  out  those  unfit.  The 
first  year  is  given  wholly  to.  school,  but  the  studies  are  given  a  prac- 
tical, preparatory  character.  During  the  next  3  years,  the  boys  who 
elect  this  course  alternate  weekly,  those  who  have  been  in  school 
going  to  the  shops  Saturday  at  11  o'clock  to  find  how  to  carry  on  for 
the  next  week  the  work  of  their  alternates.  The  shop  work  is  divided 
into  3  periods  of  1,650  hours  each,  for  which  the  hoys  receive  10, 
II,  and  12J/.  cents  respectively  for  their  work.  They  have  prac- 
tice under  direction  in  the  operation  of  lathes,  planers,  drilling.  an<l 
other  machines,  bench  and  floor  work,  according  to  their  ability,  the 


568  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

wage  scale  beginning  the  first  day  of  July.  The  director,  Mr. 
Hunter,  voices  the  manufacturers  in  stating  that  manual  training  as 
fitting  for  a  trade  is  a  failure.  It  turns  out  putterers  who  must 
unlearn  much  and  learn  other  things  before  they  become  effective 
for  business.  The  trade  schools  now  found  throughout  the  country, 
with  a  few  notable  exceptions,  also  fall  far  short  of  fitting  into  our 
industrial  system.  Their  equipment  is  usually  inadequate  or  anti- 
quated and  their  courses  too  cut  and  dried  to  make  them  eflfective 
in  preparing  young  people  for  industries.  But  this  method  of  utiliz- 
ing the  actual  workshops  as  an  annex  to  the  school  system,  which 
began  in  the  fall  of  1908,  so  far  gives  the  highest  satisfaction  to 
business  men,  parents,  and  the  school  authorities.  It  involves  little 
or  no  expense  to  the  city.  The  boys  make  supervised  visits  to  other 
plants,  and  it  is  proposed  to  add  paper  making,  woolen  and  cotton 
manufacture  and  any  trade  where  there  seems  to  be  a  demand.  The 
school  work  of  these  boys  is  as  far  as  practicable  either  based  upon 
actual  exigencies  of  the  shop  or  is  directed  toward  those  aspects  of 
mechanics,  physics,  chemistry,  etc.,  which  are  likely  to  be  of  service. 
An  industrial  society  conducted  by  the  boys  for  mental  and  social 
improvement  has  been  organized,  at  which  manufacturers  give  talks. 
The  superintendent  of  schools  thinks  the  time  is  at  hand  when  prac- 
tical courses,  instead  of  being  regarded  as  inferior  to  the  classical, 
will  be  thought  superior.  He  says  that  the  demand  for  industrial 
training  is  so  great  that  "  We  need  not  be  surprised  to  hear  in  the 
near  future  the  criticism  that  our  high  schools  are  mere  machine 
shops,  instead  of  the  criticism  hitherto  so  prevalent  that  they  were 
maintained  merely  as  feeders  to  the  college,"  He  deplores  the  fact 
that  the  splendid  high  school  buildings  are  in  use  so  little  of  the 
time  and  thinks  such  an  expensive  plant  should  be  put  to  use  after- 
noons if  nof  evenings.  The  boys  graduate  as  journeymen  and  always 
find  jobs.  The  shop  work  is  under  a  foreman.  Boys  who  prove 
unfit  can  take  the  usual  high  school  course.  Shop  work  is  given 
for  both  alternating  classes  during  the  summer. 

Chicopce,  Mass.,  has  a  high  school  shop  40  x  80  feet.  The  first 
floor  is  devoted  to  the  shops  and  the  motor  woodworking  benches, 
lathes,  milling  machines,  drill  press,  grinders,  gas  furnace,  hand- 
saw, etc.  The  second  story  is  for  a  drafting  room.  Every  form  of 
productive  work  has  some  educational  value  and  is  as  much  worth 
knowing  as  Greek  and  Latin.  The  Evening  School,  while  under 
the  School  Committee,  is  separate  and  independent  under  a  board  of 
trustees. 

W.  C.  Ashe,  principal  of  the  Philadelphia  Trade  School  for 
bricklaying,  carpentry,  plastering,  plumbing,  printing,  blacksmithing, 
sign  painting,  pipe  fitting,  etc.,  opened  in  September,  1906,  tells  us 
that  the  school  began  with  too  many  trades,  some  of  which  were 
discontinued  for  a  season.  The  school  I's  open  every  school  day. 
It  does  not  fit  for  any  higher  institution.  In  the  3  years  all  must 
spend  4  to  6  weeks  in  actual  work  in  the  trades  in  the  city.     The 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  569 

average  age  of  enrollment  is  16^.  There  is  an  evening  and  an 
annex  school  and  a  long  waiting  list.  The  Board  is  considering 
opening  evening  schools  of  a  practical  nature  in  the  basement  of  all 
school  buildings. 

The  Stout  Institute,  Menomonie,  Wis.,  is  to  train  eye  and 
hand  and  to  give  some  direct  fitting  for  skill.  Certain  prescribed 
work  involving  fundamental  and  related  occupations  is  given  for 
each  grade  from  kindergarten  up.  Courses  for  "boys  and  girls  are 
largely  separate  from  the  fifth  grade  on. 

The  State  of  Connecticut  has  established  2  industrial  schools, 
at  New  Britain  and  at  Bridgeport;  the  latter  will  take  boys  14 
years  of  age.  The  plan  is  not  yet  complete.  If  the  local  shops 
take  the  products  of  the  school  shops,  the  expense  will  be 
diminished. 

C.  B.  Gibson,  superintendent  of  schools,  Columbus,  Ga.,  has 
done  a  unique  work  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  citizens  for  more 
practical  education.  This  city  of  25,000  has  12  cotton  mills,  iron 
and  woodworking  industries.  The  elementary  school  had  for  a  dec- 
ade taught  manual  training  and  every  negro  girl  (the  blacks  are 
J  of  the  population)  was  given  a  course  of  5  years  in  home 
economics  and  domestic  industries.  Poultry,  milk,  floriculture,  vege- 
table gardening,  with  home  life  central,  are  taught  for  the  girls,* 
and  the  boys  are  taught  blacksmithing,  carpentry,  etc.  The  indus- 
trial trade  high  school,  the  first  of  its  kind  in  the  country  connected 
with  the  public  school  system,  is  open  11  months  in  the  year  from 
8  to  4,  with  a  3-year  course.  Pupils  must  be  14  and  have  finished 
the  fifth  grade.  Tuition  is  free,  but  each  pays  $5  for  books  and 
material.  No  foreign  languages  are  taught.  The  essentials  of 
academic  study  are  combined  with  some  trade.  There  are  30  hours 
of  industrial  work  and  22  of  academic  throughout.  Seniors  spend 
the  last  2  months  in  active  trades,  guided  by  the  school  authorities. 
At  the  graduation  exercises  each  shows  what  he  or  she  can  do. 
Cloth  is  woven  on  the  stage,  for  instance,  a  dress  cut,  fitted  and 
made,  and  a  member  of  the  class  returns  to  the  platform  wearing 
it  and  receives  her  certificate.  Five  experts  in  the  leading  indus- 
tries supervise  the  school.  Incidentally  only  are  graduates  prepared 
for  technical  schools.  The  school  lunch  is  prepared  in  the  domestic 
department.  "  Every  product  has  an  economic  value  which  cannot 
be  divorced  from  the  educational  value  of  the  process.  The  prod- 
ucts are  the  property  of  the  school  and,  if  sold,  the  price  is  con- 
verted into  raw  material  to  be  used  by  the  boys  in  producing  other 
products  of  economic  value."  Excursions  to  establishments  are 
made  and  discussed.  Graduates  are  placed  by  the  advisory  board 
according  to  their  fitness.  Perhaps  one  comes  from  overalls  to 
evening  dress  for  his  diploma,  feeling  that  the  true  American  can 
wear  either  with  equal  grace.  At  the  commencement  anyone  in  the 
audience  can  propose  a  problem  or  dictate  a  letter.  The  cost  of  the 
school  was  $100,900.     Rich  and  poor  work  side  by  side.     Tiic  test 


S70  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

is  the  2  months  without  pay  in  the  factories  where  their  capacities 
are  gauged.  The  cost  is  less  than  the  average  American  school, 
viz:  $18.40  per  capita  per  annum,  the  average  in  the  United  States 
being  $46.40. 

Public  School  No.  100,  New  York  City,  under  C.  J.  Pickett,  was 
opened  in  September,  1909.  It  admits  boys  under  14  with  a  gram- 
mar school  diploma,  or  its  equivalent  if  they  have  mechanical  tend- 
encies. The  mechanics'  trades  are  taught  by  25  carefully  chosen 
skilled  mechanics.  School  hours  are  from  9  to  5.  Various  wood 
industries,  as  well  as  machinery,  forge  work,  sheet  iron,  plumbing, 
printing,  draughting,  architecture,  etc.,  are  taught.  Shop  instruction 
is  individual  and  the  atmosphere  is  like  that  of  the  commercial  shop. 
The  aim  is  not  so  much  to  turn  out  journeymen  as  to  give  boys  a 
chance  to  enter  skilled  industries  in  a  way  to  shorten  apprenticeship. 
The  academic  course  requires  less  than  ^  of  the  pupil's  time  and 
the  mathematics,  history,  civics,  geography,  and  English  are  closely 
connected  with  industry.     All  is  in  terms  of  efficiency. 

The  David  Rankin  Junior  School  of  Mechanics  Trades  of  St. 
Louis  opened  September  i,  1909,  in  a  brick,  3-story  building  with  5 
shops,  draughting  room,  assembly  hall,  science  room,  library,  class 
room,  offices,  tool  equipment,  etc.  The  regular  courses  are  open  to 
men  and  boys  of  16  and  over  who  have  completed  the  seventh  gram- 
mar grade.  Of  those  experienced  in  a  trade  less  schooling  is 
exacted.  In  exceptional  cases  boys  of  14,  if  they  have  completed 
the  seventh  grade,  are  admitted.  They  must  be  in  good  physical 
condition.  There  is  no  set  time  for  the  length  of  the  course.  The 
school  runs  from  September  to  August  from  8  in  the  morning  to  5 
in  the  afternoon  with  Saturday  afternoons  free.  The  first  year 
there  is  only  carpentry,  bricklaying,  plumbing,  and  painting.  Day 
school  pupils  pay  $30  a  year  and  a  few  work  it  out,  though  this  is 
far  from  defraying  the  expenses  of  the  school,  which  is  in  a  city 
block.  The  founder  insisted  that  all  instruction  must  be  practical. 
There  are  certificates  of  graduation. 

The  Williamson  Free  School  of  Mechanics  Trades,  Pennsylvania, 
16  miles  from  Philadelphia,  has  24  buildings  and  230  acres.  It  was 
founded  in  1888  for  bricklayers,  carpenters,  machinists,  pattern 
makers,  and  stationary  engineers.  It  has  its  own  light,  water,  and 
sewage  plants  as  well  as  post  office.  All  who  enter  must  be  between 
16  and  18  and  must  pass  a  scholastic,  moral,  and  physical  examina- 
tion. After  probation,  pupils  are  indentured  for  3  years  for  one  of 
the  above  trades.  Board,  instruction,  clothing  are  free.  The  school 
is  open  through  the  year,  but  exercises  are  suspended  in  August. 
Pupils  are  divided  into  24  families  each  with  its  matron  and  cottage. 
School  keeps  8  hours  a  day,  save  Saturdays,  when  it  keeps  for  33/2 
hours.  During  the  first  year  half  the  time  is  spent  in  the  shop  and 
this  increases  until  during  the  last  senior  months  all  is  shop  work, 
with  instruction  3  evenings  a  week.  Work  must  be  rapid  and  ac- 
curate and  time  cards  aid  proficiency.     Ninety-five  per  cent  of  the 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  571 

graduates  enter  a  trade  at  once,  and  probably  80  per  cent  with  full 
journeymen's  wages. 

Trade  teaching  in  so  highly  specialized  an  industry  as  that  of 
boots,  shoes,  and  leather  which  in  this  country  employs  150,000 
workers  with  a  capital  of  $25,000,000  and  a  product  of  $250,000,000, 
with  its  many  automatic  machines  and  stages,  some  of  which  can  be 
learned  in  a  day  or  a  week,  is  unique  and  difficult.  The  Lynn  High 
School  has  samples  of  shoes  worth  $250  as  the  nucleus  of  a  com- 
mercial museum ;  trade  sheets  are  used  in  bookkeeping ;  business 
transactions  are  precisely  those  of  the  factory;  pupils  work  out  pay 
rolls  and  cost  of  production.  The  high  school  of  another  Massachu- 
setts shoe  town,  Brockton,  has  a  $400  line  of  shoes  to  show  processes 
and  an  elective  course  involving  the  history  of  the  industry,  tanning, 
transporting,  chemistry,  bleaches,  patenting,  blacking,  together  with 
lasting,  etc.,  with  most  of  the  training  given  in  the  factories  them- 
selves, each  of  which  has  a  trade  school  for  a  number  limited  by 
the  interests  of  the  concern.  The  country  factory  is  nearer  the 
school  than  the  large  city  plant  and  gets  winter  work  from  the 
farms;  and  then,  after  acquiring  a  little  skill  and  beginning  to  steal 
the  trade,  the  workman  goes  to  the  large  factory  posing  as  skilled; 
or  the  factory  sends  an  agent  to  gather  in  workers,  men  and  women, 
from  the  small  towns.  While  an  able  boy  can  work  his  way  from 
the  bottom  to  the  top,  the  tendency  is  to  stick  to  one  line  of  piece 
work.  In  a  single  room  of  the  Bedford  Street  School,  Boston,  con- 
tinuation classes  in  shoe  and  leather  work  for  40  boys,  2  hours  a 
day  and  2  days  a  week,  were  opened  April  11,  1910.  This  was  done 
by  and  under  the  school  board,  but  upon  request  of  the  leather  men. 
The  course  will  stress  merchandising  rather  than  the  manufacturing 
side  of  the  business.  The  Beverly  idea,  oh  the  other  hand,  is  shoe- 
making,  with  2  squads  of  boys  of  25  each,  one  in  school  and  one  at 
work,  alternating  weekly  and  receiving  half  the  piece  price  of  what 
they  do.  Thus  here,  as  with  other  industries  in  Rochester,  New 
York,  where  20  concerns,  and  in  the  Lewis  Institute,  Chicago,  where 
various  firms  come  in,  manufacturers  cooperate.  In  Europe  there 
are  several  schools :  e.  g.,  Bethnel  Green  under  the  gild  of  the  Lon- 
don Institute  and  the  liveried  companies  which  contribute  money 
and  advice.  Machinery  is  loaned,  material  given,  and  practical  men 
teach.  There  is  a  general  outline  of  the  whole  industry.  At 
Leicester,  England,  a  good  course  is  given  in  a  technical  school 
along  with  hosiery  and  plumbing,  with  weekly  lectures  on  the  bones 
and  muscles  of  the  foot,  designs,  estimates  of  stock  machinery  given 
by  the  companies;  while  Northamptonshire  has  the  evening  type  in 
8  shoe  centers  near  by,  with  full  time  paid  instructors,  trifling  fees, 
etc.  The  operative  need  not  know  the  whole  trade,  but  can  select 
his  subdivision  after  some  experience.  The  royal  Prussian  shoe 
technical  school  near  Diisseldorf  is  under  the  government  and  runs 
8  hours  a  day  for  46  weeks.  Foremen  are  turned  out  in  6  months, 
superintendents  in  2  years. 


572  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

The  Master  Printers  of  Boston  established  an  evening  school  in 
January,  1900,  which  in  1904  was  changed  to  a  day  school  with  shop 
hours.  Applicants  must  be  16  and  well  recommended;  and  the 
school  hours  are  like  those  of  the  shop,  48  per  week.  The  first  year 
each  boy  pays  $100  in  quarterly  installments  in  advance.  This 
guarantees  earnestness.  The  course  embraces  book  work,  jobbing, 
advertising,  composition,  platinum  press  work,  etc.  The  school 
takes  no  orders,  but  is  run  purely  in  the  interests  of  the  apprentices. 
Its  expenses  are  partly  met  by  the  tuition  and  partly  by  contributions 
of  employing  printers,  who  constitute  a  board  of  supervisors.  It  is 
well  provided  with  apparatus.  There  is  an  apprentice  festival  yearly 
with  addresses  and  a  collation,  where  the  indentures  are  signed 
which  contract  for  a  4-year  course,  the  first  year  in  the  school,  the 
remainder  in  the  shop,  where  the  apprentice  earns  $9  at  first;  at  the 
end  of  the  third  year,  $12;  at  the  end  of  the  fourth,  $16  a  week. 
Thus  he  is  assured  of  an  opportunity  to  learn  his  trade  well  and  can 
see  his  way  4  years  in  advance  and  is  practically  certain  of  finding 
a  good  place.  It  is  believed  these  graduates  furnish  a  high  grade 
of  skill  and  faithful  service.  It  is  thought  a  far  better  place  to 
learn  than  a  trade  school  or  a  printing  office. 

The  Typographical  Union  finding  that  high  specialization  did  not 
render  printers  able  to  teach  a  trade  well,  because  every  moment 
spent  in  teaching  lowered  the  foreman's  efficiency,  so  that  if  he  were 
warm-hearted  he  was  liable  to  be  discharged,  established  a  system 
known  as  the  International  Typographical  Union  Course  in  Printing, 
which  is  devoted  to  the  principles  underlying  good  typography. 
There  was  great  diversity  of  standards  and  many  disputes  about 
taste;  and  this  often  prevented  capable  compositors  from  exercising 
originality  or  ingenuity.  The  course  of  30  lessons  had  usually  cost 
from  $50  to  $60;  but  the  Inland  Printer's  School  sought  instruction 
at  cost  price,  the  Union  doing  the  advertising  and  giving  a  rebate 
at  cost  price,  or  $20  with  $5  for  an  outfit.  Each  student  has  a  right 
to  seek  advice  from  expert  local  printers  who  have  always  a  wealth 
of  subconscious  knowledge  that  comes  out  on  occasion.  Students 
jot  down  on  strips  what  they  want  to  know,  and  all,  even  the  back- 
ward students,  are  helped.  The  Union  does  not  believe  in  schools 
that  turn  out  inferior  workmen  or  those  that  become  "  scab  hatch- 
eries "  and  swell  the  hosts  of  the  unemployed,  which  employers 
would  like  to  see.  Schools  must  not  be  run  for  profit  only  or  turn 
out  half-baked  workmen  in  short  courses.  This  seems  to  be  the 
sentiment  of  the  50,000  members  of  this  Union  with  the  700  local 
divisions,  of  which  The  Inland  Printer  is  the  craft's  leading  journal. 
Correspondence  courses  are  not  approved. 

Donnelley  and  Sons  Company  of  Chicago  (Lakeside  Press) 
opened  an  apprentice  school  in  July,  1908,  to  teach  boys  printing. 
They  must  be  grammar  school  graduates  between  14  and  16  and  are 
apprenticed  for  7  years.  A  hundred  boys  carefully  chosen  from  30 
grammar  schools  are  enrolled.     They  work  in  classes  8  hours  a  day. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  573 

For  the  first  2  years  they  attend  school  daily  y/2  hours  and  work 
4!/^  hours  in  the  various  departments.  Divisions  alternate  weekly 
between  the  school  and  shop.  The  work  is  curriculized  and  begins 
with  the  simplest  form  of  typesetting.  If  a  boy  keeps  a  monthly 
standing  of  75  per  cent  for  6  months,  he  receives  a  bonus  of  $25 
payable  semiannually.  Those  who  maintain  this  standing  for  a 
year  receive  2  weeks'  vacation  on  pay.  At  the  end  of  2  years  the 
boy  selects  his  trade  department  and  works  regularly  in  the  shop, 
attending  school  2  or  3  hours  a  week.  The  school  has  a  library  in 
English  literature,  trade  journals,  etc.  The  first  year  boys  are  paid 
$2.40  per  week  or  10  cents  an  hour  for  shop  time;  the  second  year 
$3  and  the  third  year  $5.  Wages  increase  every  6  months  until  at 
the  close  of  his  time  the  apprentice  receives  $20  a  week.  If  the 
work  is  satisfactory  they  then  receive  a  diploma  and  are  considered 
first-class  compositors. 

The  Albany  Vocational  School  opened  April,  1909,  with  50  boys 
and  50  girls  and  146  on  the  waiting  list.  Most  pupils  were  of  the 
seventh  grade  and  about  14.  A  letter  had  been  sent  to  their  parents, 
who  generally  desired  such  a  school.  The  minimum  age  of  admis- 
sion is  12.  The  course  is  4  years  with  a  6-hour  day.  The  first  2 
years  are  preparatory  and  then  the  pupils  decide  whether  they  will 
continue  industrial  training  or  enter  the  high  school.  If  the  former, 
they  specialize  in  one  of  the  industries  of  the  city  which  requires 
preparation.  Of  the  1,800  minutes  per  week,  600  are  given  to  shop 
and  hand  work,  300  to  drawing,  255  each  to  English,  geography,  and 
arithmetic.  In  the  third  and  fourth  year,  900  minutes  are  given  to 
drawing  and  shop,  225  each  to  algebra  and  geometry,  physics, 
chemistry,  and  mechanics,  with  100  minutes  to  industrial  history  and 
economics.  The  30  hours  a  week  are  equally  divided  between 
academic  and  technical  instruction.  Hand  work  for  the  first  2  years 
is  like  that  of  the  local  high  school,  but  15  hours  a  week  instead  of 
2.  During  the  last  2  years,  work  is  shaped  toward  local  industries. 
Girls  keep  house  in  the  kitchen  and  dining  room,  furnished  in  simple 
style,  and  are  taught  laundering,  cooking,  and  bookkeeping.  There 
is  a  well-equipped  sewing  room.  History  and  civics  arc  taught  to 
make  citizens ;  mathematics  and  the  sciences  are  applied.  The 
school  is  in  an  8-room  building  that  does  not  permit  machinery, 
foundry,  or  forge.  The  original  equipment  cost  about  $2,805,  main- 
tenance about  $3,400,  exclusive  of  janitor. 

The  Agassis  School,  Boston,  originated  in  letters  sent  out  in  June, 
1909,  stating  that  50  sixth-grade  boys  who  liked  to  work  would  be 
selected.  Those  chosen  were  divided  into  2  equal  sections  with  an 
hour  of  industrial  practice  a  day.  The  product  must  bo  wanted. 
First  boxes  used  by  the  school  were  made.  Each  boy  made  a  whole 
box  and  then  the  work  was  specialized  in  from  2  to  6  parts.  The 
efficiency  of  the  boys  measured  by  the  output  of  boxes  is  said  to 
have  increased  about  400  per  cent.  They  were  first  grouped  by 
ability  and  then  a  check  system  traced  each  piece  of  work  to  its 


574  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

source.  Groups  were  frequently  changed.  Hundreds  of  pencil 
boxes  were  made  for  high  school  pupils,  and  Harvard  covers  with 
leather  backs  and  corners.  The  time  given  to  this  was  deducted 
from  manual  training,  drawing,  and  arithmetic.  Each  keeps  a  record 
of  time,  material,  and  output — and  this  is  the  basis  of  arithmetical 
exercises.  Industrial  words:  tools,  processes,  etc.,  form  the  basis  of 
spelling. 

At  Beverly,  Mass.,  a  vocational  school  was  opened  in  August, 
1909,  with  42  boys  from  14  to  17,  under  2  skilled  machinists.  The 
United  Shoe  Machinery  Company  furnished  the  shop  with  an  excel- 
lent equipment,  in  one  of  its  buildings,  at  a  cost  of  $35,000.  Mate- 
rial is  supplied  at  cost  and  the  boys  receive  a  stated  price  for  prod- 
ucts. The  city  appropriates  $1,800  for  expenses  and  it  is  expected 
the  state  will  double  this  sum.  Boys  are  in  2  classes,  working  and 
attending  school  alternately  through  the  year.  The  vocational 
school  is  in  the  hands  of  a  board  of  trustees. 

The  Portland,  Ore.,  School  of  Trades,  part  of  the  public 
school  system  of  Portland,  was  established  in  September,  1908,  in  a 
22-room  building.  The  school  opens  at  9  a.m.,  closes  at  i  p.m.,  5 
days  a  week;  there  are  25  minutes  for  lunch,  and  the  course  is  3 
years ;  tuition  free ;  books  must  be  purchased,  also  overalls  and  draw- 
ing instruments ;  breakage  of  tools  and  undue  waste  of  material  must 
be  made  good;  15  hours  a  week  are  academic  for  2  years,  and  13  for 
the  third  year.  A  boy  must  be  14  and  is  supposed  to  be  a  graduate 
of  the  grammar  school.  All  must  take  academic  work  unless  they 
have  had  it  elsewhere.  Then  they  can  spend  their  extra  time  in 
the  trade  work,  viz.,  machinery,  trades,  pattern  making,  molding, 
foundry,  electrical  instruction,  mechanical  drawing,  plumbing,  gas- 
fitting,  bricklaying,  plastering,  wiring,  cabinet  making,  architecture, 
etc.  When  a  boy  enters,  he  chooses  his  trade,  and  it  requires  12^ 
hours  a  week  for  the  first  2  years  and  14^  for  the  third  year.  In 
the  second  year  girls  are  admitted  and  offered  courses  in  dressmak- 
ing, millinery,  domestic  science;  other  courses  are  to  be  added. 

Newton,  Mass.,  in  1909,  opened  a  school  for  boys  of  the  seventh 
and  eighth  grades  who  were  not  going  to  high  school.  Provision 
was  made  for  only  18  at  first;  but  probably  50  must  be  provided  for. 
The  course  is  3  years.  Those  who  enter  must  practically  promise 
to  remain  until  the  end.  The  pupils  are  from  14  to  17.  They  work 
30  hours  a  week,  16  of  which  are  devoted  to  shop  work,  which  at 
present  is  only  in  wood,  4  hours  to  mechanical  and  free-hand  draw- 
ing, and  10  hours  to  academic  subjects  which  are  related.  This 
means  5^  more  hours  of  work  than  in  public  school,  and  it  may 
remain  in  session  till  August  ist.  The  boys  evidently  feel  the  need 
of  this  work  or  the  older  ones  would  not  seek  it. 

The  Columbus,  Ohio,  Training  School  is  part  of  the  public  school 
system  and  was  opened  in  November,  1909,  in  an  i8-room  building. 
Boys  must  be  14  and  have  finished  the  sixth  grade,  but  under  cer- 
tain conditions  this  requirement  may  be  waived  upon  recommenda- 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  575 

tions  of  teacher,  principal,  or  superintendent.  Older  boys  may  be 
admitted  if  there  is  room,  but  preference  is  given  to  those  who  want 
to  learn  a  trade  because  of  poverty,  death,  or  inability  of  the  parents 
to  keep  them  in  school  or  who  do  not  like  culture  studies.  The 
equipment  cost  $30,000;  capacity,  350  pupils;  205  are  enrolled. 
Classes  are  limited  to  16.  Printing,  woodworking,  mechanical 
drawing,  etc.,  are  taught.  The  products  of  the  shop  are  used  by  the 
school.  An  electrical  and  machine  shop  department  is  to  be  added, 
a  kiln,  dry  room,  storage,  etc.  Each  selects  a  trade  and  the  drawing 
has  a  direct  relation.  If  a  boy  proves  not  adapted  to  a  certain 
trade,  another  may  be  chosen. 

The  North  Bentiett  Street  Industrial  School,  Boston,  was  founded 
in  1880  to  train  the  unskilled  masses.  Up  to  1909  it  had  registered 
a  total  of  38,000  persons.  The  house  was  first  leased,  then  pur- 
chased. In  1905  a  social  service  house  was  added  near  by,  and  in 
1908  a  third.  This  was  a  private  beneficence  of  Mrs.  Quincy  Shaw, 
although  the  city  now  contributes  yearly  $1,300  to  the  library.  For 
years  pupils  have  been  received  from  2  public  schools  near  by  for 
old-fashioned  manual  training.  A  4-page  paper  is  printed  monthly. 
The  girls'  house  has  a  dining  room,  kitchen,  and  bedroom,  and  here 
50  girls  not  younger  than  13  receive  10  hours  a  week  of  industrial 
training.  Two  points  of  view — self-support  and  the  home — are  dis- 
tinguished throughout.  The  work  here  has  been  lately  greatly  de- 
veloped and  was  reorganized  on  a  larger  scale  in  1907-8.  Sixth- 
and  seventh-grade  pupils  chosen  from  the  neighboring  schools  come 
here  in  divisions  and  give  35  per  cent  of  their  time  to  work.  Some 
fit  for  the  Boston  Trade  School.  The  gain  in  character,  personal 
appearance,  interest,  and  desire  to  work  after  school  has  steadily 
increased.  In  1909  some  kind  of  industrial  training  was  given  to 
over  600  pupils.  Under  the  direction  of  A.  E.  Dodd  (1909)  the 
membership  grew  to  1,700.  There  is  a  fee  of  25  cents  for  those  14 
and  under,  50  cents  for  those  up  to  19,  and  $1  for  those  older.  The 
variety  of  work  here  is  very  great,  including  toy  making,  casting, 
stone  carving,  pottery,  etc.,  and  nonindustrial  work  includes  folk 
and  round  dances,  singing,  etc.,  with  evening  classes  for  those  older 
and  from  a  distance.  There  are  no  less  than  25  clubs  connected 
with  the  institution,  which  hold  meetings  periodically  where  diffcreftt 
nationalities,  various  lines  of  reading,  study,  debates,  dramatics, 
drill,  miniature  cities  and  states,  games,  stories,  history,  politics, 
etc.,  are  represented.  There  is  a  stamp  saving  system,  also  garden- 
ing. This  is  station  W  of  the  Boston  Public  Library  with  a  circula- 
tion of  73.000  books  in  1909.  There  is  also  a  Research  Department 
for  the  study  of  the  social  conditions  of  the  North  luid.  One  of 
these  investigations  was  of  a  grammar  school,  which  showed  that 
out  of  3,224  girls  who  entered,  only  261  graduated,  of  whom  less 
than  100  entered  the  high  school,  from  which  20  graduated.  Another 
study  showed  that  29  per  cent  of  the  girls  during  7  years  had  moved. 
Another  showed  that  of  135  families,  nearly  half  wore  more  or  less 


576  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

dependent  upon  the  work  of  mother  and  children;  and  yet  another 
that  out  of  1,317  owners  of  property  near  by,  only  553  were  residents, 
and  of  these  32  per  cent  were  Italians  and  22  per  cent  Jews.  There 
were  189  chattel  mortgages,  and  296  tenements  in  the  district. 

The  Hampton  Institute  of  Armstrong  and  Booker  T.'  Washington 
seems  destined  to  become  almost  classic  ground  for  those  interested 
in  industrial  education.  It  is  teaching  the  most  practical  occupa- 
tions: carpentry,  blacksmithing,  tailoring,  wheelwrighting,  machin- 
ist's trade,  upholstering,  painting,  shoemaking,  bricklaying,  steam 
fitting,  harness  making,  printing,  and  tinsmithing.  There  is  a  clinic 
or  repair  shop  which  operates  on  broken  furniture  and  carriages, 
and  small  houses  are  designed  and  the  cost  figured  out.  There  are 
3  cooking  classes:  one  very  elementary  for  girls  not  likely  to  be 
there  long;  one  more  advanced  for  middlers;  and  still  another,  with 
a  touch  of  chemistry  in  it,  for  those  intending  to  teach  cooking. 
The  most  popular  is  the  sewing  department  with  basketry  and  lace 
making  added,  because  slovenly  work  can  best  be  detected  in  the 
former  and  the  latter  best  teaches  accuracy  and  care.  The  academic 
is  based  upon  the  practical  at  every  point.  Language  is  first  taught 
by  doing  something  to  talk  and  write  about,  and  there  are  no  books 
for  3  months.  Mathematics  is  based  on  the  cashbook,  which  each 
must  keep,  showing  what  the  school  owes  him  for  work  and  what 
he  owes  the  school  for  board.  At  the  end  of  3  months  his  account 
must  square  with  that  of  the  office.  Also  cost  of  material,  time, 
bills,  memoranda  for  the  shop  and  kitchen  are  made  class  work. 
Geography  is  based  partly  on  industry,  partly  on  current  events. 
Drawing  is  of  houses,  window  boxes,  frames,  book  covers,  cards, 
designs  made  in  the  school.  In  the  school  of  gymnastics,  measure- 
ments and  records  of  family  and  home  life  are  kept,  with  moral 
improvements.  In  music,  folk  songs  are  cherished  along  with  good 
composers.  The  Bible  is  of  immense  influence  because  the  story  of 
the  children  of  Israel  is  so  like  that  of  the  pupils  here.  Many  other 
schools  have  sprung  up  more  or  less  on  this  pattern — e.  g.,  the  St. 
Paul  School  at  Lawrenceville,  Va.,  with  between  20  and  30  de- 
partments of  industry,  with  stress  on  lumber  manufactures  and 
building.  They  also  make  brick,  have  a  granite  quarry,  and  erect 
their  own  buildings.  Milk,  pig  raising,  and  dunging  are  made 
academic  subjects. 

The  Berea  Evening  School  is  fed  by  the  80,000  to  100,000  negroes 
in  greater  Philadelphia  and,  to  some  extent,  by  the  12,000,000  colored 
people  in  the  country  generally.  Twenty-five  years  ago  lots  were 
bought,  and  then  a  building  and  loan  association  established,  so  that 
this  school  is  a  business  concern  with  2,700  shares  of  stock  and 
$150,000  assets;  200  members  own  their  homes  at  an  average  valua- 
tion of  $2,000.  The  school  is  open  from  7.45  to  10  p.m.,  students 
coming  sometimes  from  such  great  distances  that  they  do  not  reach 
home  before  midnight.  If  there  were  room,  the  principal,  Mr.  An- 
derson, thinks  there  would  be  500  or  600  pupils.     It  has  no  endow- 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  577 

ment  but  is  supported  by  subscription.  The  colored  people  are  now 
realizing  that  they  must  learn  to  work. 

L.  W.  Miller  describes  the  Institution  of  Industrial  Art,  Phila- 
delphia, established  as  a  result  of  the  Exposition,  1876,  and  designed 
to  illustrate  industrial  history  and  serve  industrial  needs.  This 
museum  is  richest  in  textiles.  The  first  year  is  devoted  to  plastic 
training  and  the  actual  handicraft  comes  later.  Its  school  of  textile 
designs,  1884,  was  the  first  here,  and  was  due  to  manufacturers  who 
felt  they  were  being  beaten  in  the  home  markets,  despite  the  tariff, 
and  so  Mr.  T.  Search  established  his  courses.  The  distinction  be- 
tween technical  and  trade  instruction  is  ignored  here,  and  intelli- 
gence even  more  than  manual  skill  is  needed.  Pottery,  stained 
glass,  iron  ornament,  bookbinding,  work  in  leather,  etc.,  are  so 
taught  that  industrial  education  shall  not  become  "  a  tail  to  the  high 
school  kite  and  nothing  else,  for  this  kite  is  already  out  of  sight  in 
the  clouds  of  the  impractical  and  the  demand  for  something  better 
is  insistent."  English,  the  classics,  and  science  are  taught  only  as 
applicable.  Pupils  must  be  at  least  16,  must  pass  an  examination 
and  show  aptitude.  The  demand  for  profitable  employment  is 
greater  here  than  that  for  a  diploma,  which  comes  at  the  end  of  3 
years.  At  first  the  school  was  supported  by  gifts ;  but  the  legislature 
now  gives  $50,000  and  the  city  $25,000  a  year.  There  are  free  fel- 
lowships from  the  public  schools.  The  enrollment  is  about  1,000 
with  40  instructors. 

The  Polytechnic  Institute  of  Brooklyn  is  unique  among  the  135 
departments  and  schools  of  technology  of  the  coimtry.  When  it  be- 
gan half  a  century  ago  there  were  but  6  like  courses,  and  its  work 
has  been  revised  to  date.  Half  these  students  come  from  the  high 
schools  of  greater  New  York,  entering  at  the  average  age  of  20. 
The  course  is  4  years,  is  adapted  to  industries,  and  social  and  other 
qualities  necessary  for  leadership  are  developed.  Half  the  studies 
are  purely  technical  and  some  purely  cultural.  Engineering  is  a 
profession,  so  logic,  philosophy,  and  psychology  are  included  with 
English,  history,  economics,  and  modern  languages.  Lectures  are 
given  by  experts  of  the  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research  on  the  work- 
ing of  the  government  departments.  There  are  evening  classes  and 
a  variety  of  practical  work. 

Principal  C.  F.  Warner  describes  the  Mechanics  Arts  High 
School  of  Springfield.  Mass.,  which  opened  in  1899  on  the  basis  of  a 
languishing  private  plumbers'  trade  school.  In  1907-8  the  enroll- 
ment was  396.  This  was  one  of  the  first  of  its  kind,  and  Cambridge, 
Hartford,  Cleveland,  and  other  cities  followed.  Major  emphasis  was 
on  the  shop,  but  the  design  was  to  supplement  its  imiK'rfoot  and 
highly  specialized  training  by  giving  greater  variety  and  ultimately 
to  improve  the  quality  of  work  and  increase  wages.  The  law  of  1870 
required  all  towns  of  10,000  or  more  in  the  state  to  maintain  even- 
ing draughting  schools.  Two  thirds  of  the  enrollment  has  been  in 
the  mechanics  trades.  Tuition  is  free  to  residents.  Few  had  not 
38 


578  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

some  experience  in  their  chosen  line,  showing  the  tendency  to  drift. 
Evening  classes  are  felt  to  have  great  limitations. 

In  Leominster,  Mass.,  in  August,  1908,  the  parents  were  asked 
by  postal  card  whether  they  would  like  their  eighth-  and  ninth-grade 
children  to  take  a  more  practical  course.  As  the  answers  were 
favorable,  in  September  such  a  course  was  opened  to  65  pupils. 
Academic  work  was  given  half  a  day  and  industrial  training  the 
other  half,  alternating  each  half  day.  One  school  building  is  de- 
voted to  it.  In  addition  to  the  grammar  subjects  the  pupils  must 
take  bookkeeping,  elementary  science,  and  the  girls  must  take  sewing, 
dressmaking,  cocking,  etc.  Twenty  per  cent  of  the  boys  chose  to 
work  either  in  the  shop  or  at  some  trade  half  a  day ;  and  they  are 
paid.  Articles  made  at  the  school  are  sold;  but  pupils  are  not  kept 
on  the  same  work  until  its  educational  value  is  lost.  There  is  a 
need  of  industrial  text-books. 

The  Rochester  Factory  School  is  unique.  In  the  summer  of  1908 
superintendents  in  factories  were  asked  what  preparation  they 
thought  most  fit  for  those  entering  their  industries.  The  demand 
was  for  boys  who  could  apply  mathematics  to  shop  problems,  state 
what  they  wanted,  had  some  general  intelligence  as  to  sources  of 
material,  who  were  able  to  meet  emergencies,  not  afraid  to  soil  their 
clothes,  and  could  work  if  alone,  and  would  not  abandon  their  job 
for  50  cents  a  week  more  in  driving  a  delivery  wagon.  Thus 
adaptability  and  industrial  intelligence  were  the  chief  requisites. 
Now  a  boy  must  pick  up  his  information  or  owe  it  to  the  friendship 
of  a  workman.  He  should  know  something  of  the  theory  of  his 
trade,  the  names  of  tools,  materials,  etc.,  be  able  to  read  blue  prints; 
in  plumbing  should  know  the  names  of  the  fittings,  how  to  make  out 
bills,  and  something  of  lubricants,  hydraulics,  and  metallurgy,  and 
something  of  established  cost.  Then  they  studied  the  boy  problem. 
There  were  824  boys  of  14  of  whom  542  would  not  enter  the  high 
school.  The  parents  of  233  of  these  desired  them  industrially 
trained.  The  course  was  submitted  to  the  trades  and  labor  council 
and  I  of  the  Trade  Unions  favored  it.  So  a  building  was  pro- 
vided: the  lower  floor  a  workshop;  the  upper  floor  for  study  and 
drawing;  below  25  six-foot  benches  were  equipped  and  there  was  a 
supply  of  lumber,  glue,  etc.,  with  circular  and  barrel  saws,  joiners, 
planers,  borers,  etc.  School  opened  December,  1908,  with  49  eighth- 
grade  pupils  and  2  teachers  of  wood  only.  In  February,  60  eighth- 
grade  boys  were  admitted  and  2  more  teachers  and  machinery  were 
added.  These  hundred  boys  were  divided  into  4  classes:  15  hours 
a  week  in  the  shop.  5  in  drawing,  5  in  mathematics,  35^2  in  English, 
i^  in  spelling,  i^  in  industrial  history.  At  the  end  of  the  first 
year  85  boys  were  enrolled  and  carpentry,  cabinetmaking,  and  elec- 
trical trades  were  added.  Mathematics  was  industrial ;  English  was 
business  English;  25  words  from  industrial  reports  were  spelled 
daily;  they  studied  economic  conditions  in  different  lands,  wage 
scales,  laws,  organizations  of  industry.     The  boys  have  practically 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  579 

equipped  the  school.  They  manufacture  pubHc  school  furniture, 
bookcases,  desks,  tables,  blackboards,  sewing  desks,  and  do  electric 
wiring.  The  hours  are  from  8.30  to  3  with  half  an  hour  for  lunch. 
The  summer  vacation  is  very  short.  The  time  card  system  is  used. 
In  March,  1909,  an  elementary  factory  school  was  started  to  fit  for 
this,  and  a  school  for  girls  will  follow. 

It  would  seem  to  be  a  self-evident  proposition  that  where  boys 
are  segregated  in  reformatories  or  elsewhere  because  found  intract- 
able at  home  or  in  school,  the  very  first  duty  owed  them  is  that 
they  should  be  rendered  capable  of  earning  a  living  when  they  leave, 
and  that  some  bases  of  character  be  taught.  The  Lyman  School 
for  such  boys,  dedicated  in  1848,  has  been  3  times  burned,  until  the 
congregate  has  been  changed  into  the  cottage  system  with  an 
average  of  30  boys  each,  while  restraint  has  grown  less  and  the 
punitive  features  are  weeded  out  and  there  is  less  to  distinguish 
it  from  a  farming  or  industrial  school.  The  boys  have  laid  bricks, 
made  doors  and  windows,  have  anticipated  some  of  the  features  of 
the  George  Junior  Republic,  have  their  own  currency  and  bank,  learn 
to  do  farm  work  and,  although  committed  for  minority,  may  work 
their  way  to  supervised  freedom.  It  is  even  claimed  that,  although 
some  change  their  names  upon  leaving  and  are  lost,  the  alumni  as  a 
whole  are  proud  of  their  relations  to  the  school  and  like  to  keep 
them  up.  Now  nothing  would  seem  more  obvious  than  that  wher- 
ever a  state  takes  extra  control  and  responsibility,  it  also  has  extra 
duties.  In  many  institutions  of  this  kind  in  this  country  this  is  not 
felt.  A  large  part  of  the  time  of  the  boys  is  spent  merely  in  house- 
work: washing,  caring  for  rooms  and  otherwise  performing  utterly 
unskilled  tasks  which  in  no  wise  fit  them  for  useful  positions  when 
they  leave.  Here  where  all  conditions  can  be  controlled,  it  would 
seem  as  though  such  institutions  might  in  some  respects  be  models 
of  industrial  training  and  could  even  be  made  experiment  stations 
where  methods  could  be  tried  out.  Many  of  these  boys  have  excep- 
tional energy,  and  they  seem  to  me  to  be  more  individualized  than 
average  boys.  This  involves  the  duty  of  studying  each  with  ex- 
ceptional care,  in  order  to  find  out  the  proper  vocation  for  each,  so 
that  he  may  not  only  be  trained  for  it  but  be  steered  to  it  when  his 
training  period  is  ended. 

W.  H.  Roe  and  his  wife  are  conducting  a  unique  Mohonk  Lodge 
in  Oklahoma,  built  somewhat  Indian-wise,  but  with  stove,  cots, 
games,  hospital,  and  designed  to  be  a  center  for  the  preservation  and 
development  of  Indian  native  arts,  for  which  a  market  is  provided. 
Buckskin,  sheepskin,  moccasins,  dresses,  dancing  skirts,  cradles, 
tepee  cloth,  gilt  work,  curios,  and  frank  adaptations  of  genuine 
Indian  work  for  modern  life  such  as  golf  belts,  purses,  and  picture 
frames,  are  produced.  They  work,  like  the  Arapaho  and  Cheyenne 
women,  with  awls  and  fibers  rather  than  with  needles  and  thread. 
Attention  is  given  to  the  symbolic  designs  of  the  Indians  which  are 
secret  and  hard  to  get.     At  night  the  Indians  gather  and  play  games. 


58o  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

A  mission  church  near  by  induces  some  to  take  the  "  Jesus  trail." 
Some  relapse  to  drink,  gambling,  or  the  mescal  habit;  and  the  sun 
dance,  which  lasts  6  weeks,  often  wastes  vigor,  money,  and  morale 
acquired  with  great  difficulty. 

Perhaps  the  best  school  of  horology  in  the  world  is  that  of 
Besanqon  (1897),  the  great  watch  and  clock  center  of  France,  which 
was  established  in  connection  with  the  university  in  that  place  and 
authorized  to  confer  upon  its  best  graduates  the  diploma  of  horo- 
logical  engineer.  There  is  a  chronometric  observatory  which  treats 
of  various  motors,  escapements,  synchronization  of  pendulums,  com- 
pensations, etc.  There  is  also  a  practical  course  which  involves 
polishing,  finishing,  making  cogs  and  wheels.  Throughout  there 
are  7  courses  with  periods  of  daily  work.  (Compare  those  at 
Waltham,  Mass.,  and  at  Elgin,  111.) 

The  Lewis  Institute  is  a  polytechnic  school  for  both  sexes,  giving 
the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Science  in  Mechanical  Engineering,  the 
title  of  Associate  in  Arts  and  an  Academy  Certificate,  representing 
4  and  2  years'  college  work  and  4  academy  years  respectively.  There 
are  four  departments:  mechanical  engineering,  mechanical  arts, 
domestic  economy,  liberal  arts.  Day  students  pay  a  registration  fee 
of  $5  and  tuition  of  $20  a  quarter.  The  rate  for  evening  students 
is  $5  a  term  of  10  weeks,  2  evenings  a  week. 

The  Cleveland  Technical  High  School,  opened  October,  1908,  has 
a  very  fine  building  in  Gothic  with  a  girls'  and  boys'  school  organ- 
ized separately  in  the  building.  It  is  open  to  pupils  from  any  part 
of  the  city.  A  day  has  9  45-minute  periods  from  8.25  to  3.25. 
School  is  in  session  the  year  round  in  4  quarters  of  12  weeks 
each. 

J.  J.  Eaton  ^  (formerly  superintendent,  Philippine  School  of 
Arts  and  Trades,  now  Director  of  the  Textile  School  in  Ludlow, 
Mass.)  tells  us  that  industrial  education  in  the  Philippines  is  an 
exceedingly  intricate  problem.  Ironwork  does  not  enter  into  the 
native  houses,  which  are  chiefly  built  of  palm  and  bamboo,  the  chief 
tool  used  being  the  bolo.  Ten  thousand  dollars  was  available  for 
this  purpose  in  August,  1901,  when  the  first  contingent  of  American 
teachers  arrived.  As  there  was  no  equipment  they  were  formed 
into  a  committee  to  investigate  the  industries  of  the  city,  chief 
among  which  were  cigar  and  cigarette  shops.  There  was  much 
marine  construction  and  repair,  and  skilled  labor  was  mostly  per- 
formed by  Chinamen.  Establishments  had  to  keep  about  50  per  cent 
additional  men  on  their  rolls  because  the  native  is  disinclined  to 
work  a  full  week.  Plumbing  was  chiefly  unknown.  There  were 
few  good  blacksmiths  or  wood  makers,  while  wood  carving,  jewelry, 
tailoring,  seemed  to  show  that  the  native  could  perform  good  work 
if  it  pleased  him  and  was  not  too  hard.     Much  stress  was  laid  on 

*  Manila  Trade  School.    Annals  of  the  Amer.  Acad,  of  Pol.  and  Soc.  Sci.,  1909, 
vol.  33,  pp.  89-96. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  S^i 

English.  The  buildings  the  Spaniards  erected  for  their  exposition 
in  1895  were  the  first  homes  of  the  school,  simple  one-story  houses 
of  wood  and  plaster  with  tile  floors,  a  mile  from  the  heart  of  the 
city.  About  all  tools  and  supplies  had  to  come  from  the  states. 
For  months  most  who  entered  left  after  a  few  days.  They  seemed 
chiefly  to  want  English  and  qualifications  for  clerical  positions. 
English  seems  to  have  been  better  learned  in  the  center  in  a  few 
years  than  Spanish  was  during  300  years.  More  than  half  who  first 
entered  had  been  rejected  from  other  schools;  many  came  from 
curiosity.  Drawing  was  a  favorite  course.  The  government  rated 
success  by  the  numbers  on  the  rolls.  Special  courses  in  telegraphy 
were  needed  and  were  successful  from  the  first.  Shop  work  with 
lathes,  saws,  planers  and  drills  slowly  grew  in  popularity.  The  course 
was  4  years.  The  Chinese  excelled.  Three  hours  a  day  must  be 
spent  in  the  shop,  with  i  additional  hour  for  drawing,  and  2  for 
academic  work.  Shop  work  increased  every  year  until  in  the  fourth 
year  all  must  be  spent  in  the  shop.  The  Spaniards  had  charged  for 
material  and  tuition.  This  was  remitted  and  there  were  fewer 
restrictions.  In  1905  the  Manila  Trade  School  or  Philippine  School 
of  Arts  and  Trades  was  reorganized.  Telegraphy  was  given  to  the 
commercial  high  school.  The  requirements  were  much  the  same  as 
for  admission  to  technical  and  high  schools  at  home.  There  were 
no  pupils  under  14,  and  no  girls.  Efforts  were  made  to  secure  prac- 
tical work  for  all  worthy  pupils  during  the  summer.  Basket  work 
and  rattan  were  added.  A  marine  course  is  needed  because  many 
boats,  inter-island  and  others,  need  to  be  repaired  here.  English 
has  been  made  a  condition  of  admission.  Evening  classes  have  not 
been  successful.  At  one  time  the  city  of  Manila  appropriated 
$30,000  for  a  trade  school,  but  the  city  government  failed  to  co- 
operate because  the  acting  secretary  of  public  instruction  thought 
pacification,  a  judiciary,  and  good  roads  should  have  preference. 
Agricultural  training  is  greatly  needed.  Each  town  often  has  a 
special  industry.  The  manufacture  of  hemp  products,  the  best  in 
the  world,  is  carried  on  in  the  crudest  manner,  and  there  are  un- 
limited possibilities  of  making  these  marvelously  long  fibers  into 
twines,  ropes,  cloth,  hats,  while  pottery  work  should  be  developed. 

C.  W.  Cross  (superintendent  of  apprentices  in  New  York 
State)  describes  the  apprentice  system  on  the  New  York  Central 
lines.  They  have  found  it  very  difficult  to  secure  foremen,  and 
most  roads  have  no  system  for  recruiting  good  men.'  The  system 
is  summed  up  as:  i,  close  supervision  and  instruction  of  apprentices 
in  the  shop  by  an  apprentice  instructor;  2,  a  school  conducted  by  the 
company  during  working  hours  in  which  mechanical  drawing  is 
taught  practically  and  where  the  apprentice  is  paid  for  attendance ; 
3,  a  course  of  problems  to  be  worked  out  on  other  time.  This  fol- 
lows  in  many   respects  the  educational   system  of  the   Rritish   Ad- 

*  See  I.  M.  Bashfud.    American  Engineer,  July,  1905. 


582  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

miralty,  which  has  trained  most  shipbuilders  in  Great  Britain.'^ 
Large  railroad  systems  now  make  it  possible  to  work  out  courses  of 
instruction.  The  pyramid  stands  on  a  basis  of  the  rank  and  file. 
At  the  beginning  there  were  12  shops,  each  of  which  had  from  20 
to  74  apprentices,  although  work  of  some  kind  had  been  carried  on 
locally  at  4  points. 

Some  35  years  ago  an  apprentice  school  was  started  at  the  Elk- 
hart shops  on  the  Lake  Shore  and  Michigan  Southern,  with  evening 
sessions,  chiefly  for  apprentices,  but  which  anyone  could  attend.  In 
1901  these  were  made  compulsory  for  apprentices,  who  organized  an 
association,  with  fortnightly  meetings  and  reports  by  committees 
who  had  seen  other  shops.  In  1886  evening  work  was  started  at  the 
Jackson  shops  on  the  Michigan  Central.  This  was  at  first  evening, 
but  was  changed  to  5.15  to  7.15  p.m.  Each  class  met  once  a  week 
from  the  first  of  November  to  the  first  of  May,  attendance  being 
compulsory.  In  1904  an  apprentice  school  was  organized  at  the 
Oswego  shops  of  the  New  Yoj-k  Central,  classes  meeting  2  hours  i 
day  each  week  directly  after  the  closing  whistle  blew.  Pupils  must 
go,  but  were  paid,  and  this  made  severe  discipline  possible.  The 
apprentice  department  of  the  New  York  Central  was  inaugurated  in 
March,  1906,  at  the  West  Albany  shops.  It  is  controlled  from  the 
Grand  Central  Station,  New  York.  The  boys  rome  in  contact  with 
shop  conditions  from  the  first,  each  larger  shop  having  2  instructors, 
one  in  drawing  and  one  in  shop  work,  all  being  arranged  to  allow 
each  to  progress  as  rapidly  as  he  can.  So  close  is  the  personal 
touch  that  no  examinations  are  held.  Often  there  is  a  long  waiting 
list.  Many  older  men  come  in  to  brush  up  and  thus  become  familiar 
with  the  company  standards.  The  schoolrooms,  with  plenty  of 
blackboard  space,  must  be  near  the  shop  buildings  to  avoid  loss  of 
time.  There  is  now  an  excellent  building  at  Brightwood  on  the  Big 
Four,  erected  for  the  purpose,  where  classes  meet  twice  a  week  for 
the  first  2  hours  in  the  morning.  In  the  New  York  Central  school 
there  are  now  667  pupils  and  extension  work  is  being  developed. 
There  are  usually  gradations  of  classes.  Very  much  of  the  work 
is  drawing.  Text-books  are  not  practicable,  but  problem  sheets  are 
used.  Some  instructors  call  at  the  boys'  houses  if  they  are  absent. 
The  instructor  must  see  they  are  changed  from  one  class  of  work  to 
another  to  give  them  broader  views  of  the  business.  Supplies  are 
purchased  in  large  quantities  and  usually  given,  although  the  boys 
provide  their  drawing  apparatus.  Problems  are  based  on  gearing, 
steam  distribution,  valve  setting,  etc.  By  better  opportunities  the 
better  class  of  boys  is  attracted,  and  the  larger  the  comprehension 
the  greater  the  interest.     There  is  far  less  spoiled  work. 

N.  W.  Sample  (superintendent  of  apprentices)  describes  the 
system  at  the  Baldwin  Locomotive   Works,  Philadelphia,  where  a 

^  See  M.  W.  Alexander.  Plans  to  Provide  Skilled  Workmen  at  a  meeting  of  the 
American  Society  of  Mechanical  Engineers.    December,  1906. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  583 

scheme  of  indentured  apprenticeship  which  had  fallen  into  disuse 
for  25  years  was  reorganized  in  January,  1901.  There  are  3  classes: 
first,  boys  of  17  who  have  a  good  common  school  education  and  who 
bind  themselves,  with  the  consent  of  their  parents,  to  serve  4  years, 
attend,  obey  orders,  and  recognize  the  supervision  of  the  firm  over 
their  conduct  out  of  as  well  as  in  the  shops,  and  to  attend  the  night 
school  during  the  first  3  years  of  their  apprenticeship.  The  second 
class  includes  boys  of  18  who  have  a  high  school  training  and  who 
promise  to  serve  3  years  and  to  attend  the  night  school  the  first  2 
years.  And  the  third  class  is  made  up  of  men  of  over  21,  graduates 
from  colleges  and  technical  schools,  who  want  practical  shop  work. 
The  indentures  of  the  first  and  second  class  provide  for  attendance 
at  the  public  school,  although  many  of  them  go  to  night  schools. 
Each  must  make  formal  application  in  his  own  handwriting,  stating 
his  course  of  study,  and  submit  to  a  30-days'  probation,  and  when 
indentured  is  paid  a  fixed  wage  per  hour,  increasing  each  year,  with 
a  bonus  of  $125  to  the  first  class  boys,  and  $100  to  the  second  class 
boys,  if  they  complete  the  course.  In  the  first  two  classes  appren- 
tices are  not  permitted  to  work  on  the  same  process  more  than  three 
months  or  in  one  shop  or  department  more  than  one  year.  The 
departmental  change  is  every  six  months.  A  complete  record  is  kept 
of  each  boy's  conduct  and  service,  which  is  sent  to  the  foreman  when 
he  is  transferred.  The  last  period  of  each  apprentice  is  spent  in  the 
erecting  shop.  Attendance  is,  of  course,  obligatory.  Apprentices 
come  from  all  parts  of  the  country.  Three  years  after  the  first 
indentured  apprentice  completed  his  term  there  were  over  200  grad- 
uates, 50  of  whom  occupied  responsible  positions.  Now  it  is  not 
necessary  to  go  outside  for  any  kind  of  talent. 

M.  W.  Alexander  describes  the  apprenticeship  system  of  the 
General  Electric  Company  at  IFcst  Lynn,  Mass.  He  says  that  the 
recent  imprecedented  industrial  prosperity  has  very  vividly  revealed 
the  lack  of  skilled  workmen,  and  when  the  revival  of  business  comes 
again  this  will  be  still  more  acutely  felt.  This  company  has  special 
training  rooms  for  the  preliminary  practical  training  of  apprentices. 
All,  when  accepted,  must  serve  a  trial  period  of  2  months,  and  then 
those  who  show  native  ability  and  a  good  moral  make-up  are  per- 
mitted to  sign  an  agreement  which  is  based  rather  upon  honor  than 
on  law.  Boys  are  made  self-supporting,  and  those  selected  receive 
$5  a  week  the  first  year,  including  the  trial  period,  $6.50  a  week  the 
second,  $7.50  a  week  the  third,  and  $9  a  week  the  last  year.  At  the 
end  of  the  course  they  are  given  a  "certificate  of  apprenticeship" 
and  a  cash  bonus  of  $100,  and  the  best  are  invited  to  remain  with 
the  company,  receiving  usually  $2.50  or  $3  per  day.  The  machinists' 
training  room  now  covers  more  than  10,000  square  feet,  with  over 
100  representative  machine  tools.  The  training  room  for  pattern 
makers  occupies  2,000  square  feet.  While  most  of  the  machines  are 
of  the  latest  pattern,  some  arc  those  relegated  to  the  scrap  heap. 
This  prevents  injury  to  high-priced  tools  by  inexperienced  boys,  and 


584  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

gives  opportunity  for  repairing.  At  the  beginning  each  is  under  the 
direct  supervision  of  a  superintendent  of  apprentices,  who  thus 
studies  the  boy's  capacity  and  character.  Some  require  i^  and 
others  3  years  to  pass  through  the  training  room.  They  round  out 
their  knowledge  and  skill  on  a  variety  of  work.  Then  some  special- 
ize on  that  for  which  they  are  best  fitted.  The  best  are  given 
opportunities  to  act  as  temporary  instructors,  the  general  instructor 
often  coming  in  to  supervise.  The  young  masters  put  forth  their 
best  efforts  to  impress  the  boy  pupils  with  their  own  knowledge.  It 
happens  that  some  teach  those  who  have  been  longer  in  the  training 
room  than  they  themselves.  This  shows,  however,  that  capables  are 
not  held  back.  This  instruction  is  given  during  the  regular  working 
time,  and  the  apprentices  are  paid  the  same  wage  during  the  school 
hours  as  they  would  receive  while  working  at  the  bench  or  machine. 
While  instruction  is  given  in  mathematics,  physics,  technology,  and 
mechanical  drawing,  the  problems  are  practical  and  selected  from 
daily  factory  life  to  teach  boys  to  think  for  themselves.  "  Through 
practice  to  theory "  is  the  maxim.  Tool  designers  should  be  tool 
makers  and  vice  versa.  Groups  of  15  form  a  class.  Some  receive 
instruction  from  7  to  9  a.m.,  others  from  10  to  12  a.m.,  or  during 
the  first  or  last  part  of  the  afternoon.  Of  y6  apprentices  over  50 
are  at  present  employed  by  the  company. 

Professor  R.  K.  Duncan  ^  has  realized  a  unique  coordination  of 
chemistry  and  industry.  A  laundry  association  gave  $500  a  year  for 
2  years  for  a  chemist  to  investigate  modes  of  saving  people's  linen. 
An  oil  firm  established  a  temporary  fellowship  to  study  the  thyroid 
and  suprarenal  glands  of  fin-  and  hump-back  whales  of  Labrador  to 
find  the  age  of  whales  in  which  these  were  largest.  The  association 
of  bakers  has  contributed  to  have  another  problem  solved  at  the 
University.  One  fellow  works  on  the  constituents  of  crude  petro- 
leum; another  to  improve  the  enamel  of  lined  steel  tanks;  another 
is  at  work  on  new  utilities  for  Portland  cement,  at  $1,500  a  year,  10 
per  cent  of  all  patents  and  5  per  cent  on  all  processes  'resulting  there- 
from ;  another  has  $2,000  a  year  for  new  utilities  for  ozone ;  another 
is  working  on  a  new  source  of  diastase ;  and  another  to  utilize  the 
waste  of  petroleum.  The  work  began  with  the  study  of  the  optical 
properties  of  gas  and  its  chemical  composition.  The  firm  supplies 
the  money  and  the  student  gives  all  his  time  to  investigate  the 
scientific  problem  designed  to  be  of  value  to  the  business.  He  only 
gives  3  hours  a  week  instruction ;  is  appointed  by  the  chancellor  and 
the  professor;  is  paid  in  10  monthly  installments.  All  discoveries 
belong  to  the  company  furnishing  the  funds;  the  fellow,  however, 
receives  10  per  cent  of  the  net  profits  and  is  regarded  as  the  in- 
ventor. He  may  in  the  end  engage  himself  to  the  company  for  a 
term  of  3  years;  and  if  there  are  differences,  the  chancellor  arbi- 
trates.    The  research  may  be  kept  a  secret   for  3  years.     Duncan 

*  Western  Chemist  and  Metallurgist,  Nov.,  1909,  No.  11. 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  585 

began  by  a  study  of  manufactures  involving  chemical  processes  and 
found  chaos,  waste,  and  utter  disregard  of  scientific  knowledge  which 
he  ascribed  to  wealth  of  raw  material,  excessive  tariff,  and  great 
talent  for  business,  which  supplements  waste  in  factories  by  shrewd- 
ness in  making  markets.  A  few  have  chemists,  but  bad  facilities 
and  worse  libraries.  The  fellow  gives  a  complete  account  of  his 
hours  of  investigation,  signs  a  legal  waiver  of  all  pecuniary  interest 
in  the  results  and  a  pledge  of  secrecy. 

L'Ecole  du  Livre,  in  Paris,  was  founded  about  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago  by  the  city  of  Paris  for  instruction  in  everything  in- 
volving bookmaking.  It  was  prepared  for  by  its  founder,  M.  Hove- 
laque,  by  years  of  study  and  travel.  It  is  a  day  school,  from  8  to  6, 
with  2  meals;  and  receives  boys  of  12  who  have  finished  the  lower 
primary.  About  100  were  admitted  first  on  a  competitive  examina- 
tion from  300  applicants.  There  are  17  courses  in  all,  including 
type  casting  and  setting,  drawing  and  engraving  of  various  kinds, 
etc.  Only  those  elements  of  chemistry  are  taught  which  are  neces- 
sary for  ink  making,  photography,  etc.,  the  science  being  entirely 
subordinated  to  its  application.  The  first  year  all  studies  are  hastily 
passed  through  and  the  pupil  then  concentrates  along  the  lines  of  his 
tastes  and  aptitudes.  The  institution  has  a  large  and  admirably 
appointed  building  on  the  Rue  Vauquelin.  Instructors  of  the  school 
were  appointed  by  competitive  examination.  It  was  quietly  in- 
augurated with  very  little  talk  and  no  theorizing,  but  on  the  idea 
that  modern  trades  are  narrowing  and  that  a  workman  is  far  better 
if  he  knows  something  of  all  parts  of  his  trade  and  all  its  larger, 
scientific,  social,  and  hygienic  bearings.  The  plan  is  very  similar  to 
that  of  the  magnificent  photo-engraving  school  at  Vienna,  the  city 
typesetting  school  at  Barcelona,  and  was  related  to  the  admirable 
Plantin  Museum  of  all  the  tools  and  processes  of  bookmaking,  until 
this  was  excelled. 

In  France  there  are  vintner  schools  and  courses  for  those  who 
cultivate  the  vine,  and  wine  makers'  courses  for  those  who  maiuifac- 
ture  the  many  different  kinds  of  wine.  These  are  matters  which  epi- 
cures discuss  with  great  zest  and  edification  for  each  other's  benefit. 
Processes  by  which  Moselle,  Bordeaux,  Port,  Claret,  Sauterne,  Cham- 
pagne, are  made  are  elaborate  and  diverse  and  require  a  high  degree 
of  intelligence  as  \*ell  as  special  skill  and  training.  Schools  also 
for  the  education  of  beer  and  ale  makers  have  been  conducted  in 
Germany.  The  processes,  too,  by  which  whisky,  and  especially  bran- 
dies, cognacs,  absinthe,  and  the  manifold  cordials  are  made  have  also 
been  curriculized.  Some  of  these  shade  over  into  the  preparation 
of  drugs  in  the  education  of  apothecaries  an<l  thus  are  annexes. 
Southern  I'Vance  has  at  least  two  interesting  courses  or  schools 
for  perfumery  makers,  in  regions  where  acres  of  roses,  pinks, 
violets,  etc..  are  found.  There  is  also  some  instruction  in  the 
methods  of  making  mineral  waters  and  light  summer  drinks,  also 
mineral  and  animal  as  well  as  vegetable  perfumery :  musk,  cologne. 


586  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

mints,  etc. — all  these  are  taught.  In  several  places  in  Europe  are 
special  courses  for  dairymaids,  and  for  cheese  and  butter  makers. 
Schools  for  the  training  of  policemen,  or  Polizeiwisscnschaft,  and 
also  for  pilots,  are  most  highly  developed  in  Germany.  Piano  tuners, 
glass  blowers,  spinners,  tax  collectors,  bootblacks,  newspaper  sellers, 
sheep  shearers,  fishermen,  makers  and  menders  of  umbrellas  and 
wooden  shoes,  judges,  journalists,  librarians,  cash  boys,  undertakers 
and  grave  diggers  (Belgium),  housewives  and  prospective  parents 
(suggested),  deaconesses,  aeronauts,  croupiers  (Monte  Carlo), 
schools  for  old  people,  for  treating  prevalent  diseases,  language  re- 
form, Esperanto,  barkeepers,  chiropodists,  rat  catchers,  even  pick- 
pockets and  thieving,  have  their  teachers  and  learners,  and  all  are  of 
genuine  pedagogic  interest  and  suggestiveness. 

One  of  the  boldest,  most  comprehensive  and  interesting 
of  all  the  new  departures  in  this  field  is  the  now  famous 
Munich  system,  which  has  transformed  its  continuation 
schools  into  elementary  technical  schools  for  apprentices.  In 
1900  schools  were  opened  for  butchers,  bakers,  shoemakers, 
chimney  sweeps,  and  barbers.  In  1901  followed  schools  for 
wood  turners,  glaziers,  gardeners,  confectioners,  wagon- 
makers,  blacksmiths,  tailors,  photographers,  interior  decora- 
tion, painter's  material.  In  1902  came  schools  for  waiters, 
coachmen,  painters,  paperhangers,  bookbinders,  potters,  stove- 
setters,  watchmakers,  clockmakers,  jewelers,  gold-  and  sil- 
versmiths. In  1903  schools  were  opened  for  foun4ry  men, 
pewterers,  coppersmiths,  tinsmiths,  plumbers,  stucco  workers, 
marble  cutters,  wood  carvers,  coopers,  leather  workers,  and 
saddlers.  In  1905  came  schools  for  business  apprentices,  type- 
setters, lithographers,  engravers,  building  iron  and  ornamen- 
tal iron  workers,  machine  makers,  mechanics,  cabinetmakers, 
masons,  stonecutters,  carpenters.  There  are  now  over  40 
of  these,  besides  3  facultative  continuation  schools  for  masters 
and  helpers.  The  former  are  compulsory  'and  must  be  held 
sometime  between  7  a.m.  and  7  p.m.  The  latter  may  be  either 
day  or  evening.  In  Germany  great  economic  and  even  moral 
advantage  is  claimed  by  utilizing  Sunday  afternoon  for  such 
and  other  school  work.  P.  Kreuzenpointer  ^  says  that  if 
Pennsylvania  had  as  many  trade  schools  in  proportion  she 
would  now  have  1,000,  and  this  country  at  large  about  30,000. 

*  An  Extreme  View  of  the  Need  of  Industrial  Education.    Amer.  Machinist, 
May  20,  1909. 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  587 

These  schools  are  usually  held  2  afternoons  per  week,  with 
sessions  from  3  to  4  hours  each  and  with  a  term  of  from  5  to  6 
months  per  year ;  the  length  of  the  course  is  3  years,  and  the  age 
of  the  boys  is  from  13  or  14  to  16  or  18.  Attendance  at  these  schools 
usually  ranges  from  20  to  100  pupils  each.  The  trades  with  which 
most  of  these  boys  are  employed  are  always  represented  in  the  board 
of  control  of  each  school.  They,  too,  furnish  most,  if  not  all,  of  the 
material  used  for  instruction ;  and  members  of  the  trade  organization 
do  much  of  the  practical  part  of  the  teaching,  although  the  more 
progressive  school-teachers  have  spent  much  time  in  studying  one 
or  more  trades.  Religion — Catholic  and  Protestant — is  always 
taught.  All  the  arithmetic,  e.  g.,  is  immediately  concerned  either 
with  the  details  of  the  trade  or  with  the  practical  life  of  the  boys. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  language  work,  the  elements  of  science,  etc. 
The  above  schools  represent  the  chief  industries  of  the  town  except 
beer,  higher  instruction  in  the  manufacture  of  which  is  given  else- 
where. Munich,  although  a  city  of  over  half  a  million  inhabitants, 
lacks  great  business  enterprise  in  the  American  sense.  The  move- 
ment was  inaugurated  by  the  superintendent,  G.  Kerschensteiner, 
and  is  described  in  a  prize  essay  *  which  seeks  to  answer  the  ques- 
tion, How  can  we  train  boys  for  citizenship  and  social  life  most 
effectively  during  the  interval  between  their  graduation  from  the 
elementary  school  and  their  entrance  into  the  army?  He  here  ad- 
vocates the  necessity  of  training  young  people  to  be  self-supporting 
as  primal,  and  also  that  the  teens  are  the  most  important  of  all  ages 
of  life  for  morals  as  well  as  for  skill,  and  maintains  that  the  true 
education  at  this  stage  was,  and  always  should  be,  active.  Bavarian 
law  compels  employers  of  boys  to  send  them  to  these  schools  where 
they  exist,  so  that  attendance  is  compulsory  for  6  to  12  hours  a  week. 
The  boy  without  a  job  must  attend  the  dwindling  old  continuation 
schools.  The  city  often  gives  teachers  leave  of  absence  to  learn 
some  of  these  trades.  The  best  citizens  and  tradesmen  meet  on  the 
committees  and  the  children  are  told  a  great  deal  about  everything 
that  bears  upon  the  trade  in  question.  Some  of  these  schools  have  a 
preparatory  year  for  those  who  have  only  passed  the  seventh  grade. 

The  pedagogic  ingenuity  that  has  been  applied  to  this  problem 
in  Munich  is  great.  Every  sum,  account,  bookkeeping  e.xercise, 
every  language  lesson  or  composition,  all  the  elementary  geometry, 
physics,  chemistry,  etc.,  is  given  a  vital  vocational  form,  which  goes 
to  the  very  heart  of  the  actual  business  to  a  degree  that  only  Booker 
T.  Washington  has  yet  realized  here.  Thus  the  courses  differ  with 
each  school.  The  chemistry  of  the  photographer,  for  instance,  has 
very  little  in  common  with  that  of  the  baker  or  the  leather  worker. 

'  Georg  Kerschensteiner.  StaatsbUrgerliche  ErziehunR  dcr  dcutschcn  Jugcnd. 
3te  Aufla^e.  P>furl,  Villaret.  IQ06.  78  p.  Sec  also  his  GrundfraRcn  der  Schul- 
organization.  Lpz.  Teubncr,  1007.  296  p.  I  am  here  under  much  obliRation  to  the 
author  of  this  system  for  its  literature,  programs,  and  other  information. 


588  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

History  and  geography  are  intimately  bound  up  with  the  occupations. 
Trade  honor,  law,  history,  organization,  are  taught.  The  lives  of 
successful  men  in  each  calling  are  told  and  their  lessons  drawn, 
and  the  qualities  that  gave  them  prominence  are  pointed  out.  The 
relations  to  other  trades,  to  sources  of  supply,  customers,  to  the  city 
and  its  ordinances,  are  taught  in  a  way  to  foster  both  local  pride 
and  respect  for  their  calling.  The  city  chiefly  controls  these  schools, 
which  are  under  the  direction  of  the  board  and  the  superintendent. 
Labor  questions,  of  course,  cannot  arise  under  these  conditions,  for 
the  boys  are  learning  their  trade  outside.  No  true  pedagogue  can 
read  the  rather  detailed  and  systematic  programmes,  reports  of  each 
of  these  schools,  etc.,  without  growing  interest  and  admiration,  not 
to  say  fascination,  if  not,  indeed,  with  a  strong  desire  to  take  each 
course  himself.  One  feels  that  a  barber,  butcher,  baker,  cobbler, 
and  the  rest,  may  be  an  educated  gentleman  if  he  masters  his  craft. 
The  chimney  sweep,  e.  g.,  is  taught  about  fireplaces,  hearths,  stoves, 
steam,  and  other  systems  of  heating,  brick,  stone  and  other  building 
material,  flues,  fluted  and  complex  chimneys,  their  tops,  ventilators, 
the  physics  of  air  currents  and  the  history  of  house  warming  from 
Greece  and  Rome  to  our  day;  he  knows  all  the  tools  and  problems 
of  his  trade:  the  chemistry  of  soot  and  ash;  does  problems  in  tem- 
perature and  fuel  economics,  fireproof  construction;  studies  roofs, 
mortars,  devices  for  reducing  smoke  and  gas,  fire  extinguishers, 
something  of  house  and  especially  of  chimney  construction,  laws, 
insurance,  police  regulations,  the  use  of  pitch,  plaster,  waterspouts, 
etc. ;  there  is  considerable  instruction  concerning  duties,  deportment, 
civics,  etc.  Surely  no  boy  in  the  later  teens  who  has  mastered  such 
a  course  can  be  called  uneducated.  It  may  also  here  be  mentioned 
that  there  is  a  large  continuation  school  for  girls  in  two  divisions : 
one  for  household  or  domestic,  and  the  other  for  business,  training. 

The  impression  from  the  study  of  these  German  schools, 
which  in  the  last  few  years  have  attracted  thousands  of  visi- 
tors to  Munich,  may  perhaps  be  enumerated  and  described  as 
follows :  first,  one  reahzes  the  great  wealth  of  culture  ma- 
terial which  can  be  vitalized  by  vocational  interests.  These 
curricula  contain  each  a  comprehensive  body  of  facts,  laws 
and  principles  that  are  of  both  humanistic  and  occupational 
value.  The  broad  outlook  and  the  vast  surface  of  contact 
between  each  calling  and  the  life  of  the  community  and  the 
world  appear.  It  is  surprising  to  see  what  a  wide  range  of 
knowledge  can  be  made  to  be  of  direct  utility,  if  only  the 
right  connections  are  made,  how  intelligent  a  successful 
artisan  needs  to  be,  and  how  wide  the  range  of  information, 
not  to .  say  learning,  that  can  be  turned  to  direct  and  imme- 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  589 

diate  practical  account  and  that  has  here  been  utilized  for 
pedagogy.  This  great  fund  of  what  may  be  called  expert 
knowledge  in  the  minds  of  intelligent  and  skilled  workmen, 
of  the  extent  and  value  of  which  they  are  unconscious,  the 
very  fact  that  the  zests  and  accomplishments  which  they  live 
by  have  been  discovered  by  teachers  and  turned  to  educational 
account — this  gives  them  added  self-respect,  as  it  should. 
They  see  that  schooling  is  not  the  three  R's  alone,  but  that, 
if  their  practical  lore  is  curriculized,  it  greatly  augments  their 
own  sense  of  its  value,  to  say  nothing  of  enriching  the  school 
course,  the  action  of  which  has  been  not  unlike  that  of  a  new 
railroad  through  lands  hitherto  inaccessible  to  markets  in  in- 
creasing the  value  of  its  acreage. 

The  preliminary  survey  and  the  courses  that  resulted  in- 
creased the  domain  of  pedagogy  by  opening  these  wide  fields 
to  which  ever  since  the  dawn  of  civilization  most  men  have 
devoted  most  of  their  time  and  energy.  What  they  have  cul- 
tivated here  has  hitherto  met  with  scant  recognition,  perhaps 
with  contempt,  by  teachers  from  Plato  down.  Curriculized 
knowledge  has  hitherto  run  in  such  narrow  channels  that  it 
has  cut  too  deep  to  vivify  the  plains  on  either  hand,  which 
have  become  arid  wastes.  But  now  the  stream  bed  is  over- 
flowing and  its  irrigating  effects  are  already  manifest.  In- 
deed all  educational  problems  are  from  this  point  of  view 
vastened,  until  education  seems  entering  a  new  era  with  pos- 
sibilities for  not  only  national  but  human  effectiveness  greater 
than  we  have  ever  had  reason  to  hope  for  before.  We  find 
here,  too,  a  growing  belief  that  the  world  is  again  likely  to 
learn  what  real  teaching  is  and  can  do. 

Once  again  we  learn  from  many  observers  and  reports 
how  intensely  these  pupils  are  interested  and  how  passing 
well  these  chosen  master  workmen  with  no  training  in  the  art, 
can  teach,  so  that  trained  pedagogy  has  a  great  deal  to  learn 
from  them.  Put  a  few  bright  boys  in  the  earliest  teens  and 
a  capable  man  in  the  forties  who  knows  his  business  and 
loves  it  together,  and  we  have  perhaps  the  very  best  possibili- 
ties for  teaching  and  learning,  which  the  world  to-day  is  in 
danger  of  forgetting.  This  is  just  about  the  age  difference 
when  normal  fatherhood  feels  the  pedagogic  instinct  most  in- 
tensely.    It  is  on  both  sides  the  age  when  social  heredity  does 


590  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

its  most  and  its  best,  when  all  kinds  of  tradition  and  transmis- 
sion are  most  active  and  effective.  The  master  here  does 
things  and  thus  sets  copy  for  this  most  imitative  age.  If  he 
talks,  it  is  to  explain  his  acts  or  deeds.  A  good  artisan  prates 
of  only  what  he  knows,  and  does  not  wander  into  fields  of 
knowledge  he  cannot  command.  Thus  he  speaks  not  only 
with  great  directness  but  with  authority,  and  illustrates,  or 
can  do  so,  all  he  says.  To  this  the  very  nature  of  the  boy, 
wild  though  his  instincts  may  be  at  this  age,  responds  by  a 
very  high  degree  of  docility.  The  very  boy  who  revolts 
against  a  jejune  teacher  and  deserts  a  dry  course,  follows  the 
man  who  can  tell  and  show  him  what  he  wants  to  know,  like 
a  dog  his  master,  and  is  hardly  less  responsive  to  suggestion. 
This  kind  of  teaching  is  succinct,  pointed,  curt,  epigrammatic, 
its  language  is  yea  and  nay,  it  admits  of  no  argumentation, 
but  commands,  compels,  does  not  coquette  for  juvenile  favor 
or  effervesce  with  the  gas  of  method.  Teaching  under  such 
conditions  is  indeed  masterly,  because  and  in  as  much  as  it  is 
not  schoolmasterly.  It  is  not  windy  with  words,  but  coercive 
of  all  that  is  in  the  boy,  so  that  there  is  no  part  of  him  left 
to  object,  and  because  such  authority  he  loves. 

It  is  surprising  to  note,  too,  how  many  of  these  Munich 
boys'  parents  are  in  the  same  trade  the  boy  is  entering.  Thus 
this  system  cannot  fail  to  enhance  respect  for  the  father's  call- 
ing and  therefore  for  parental  authority.  The  boy  here  is 
not  turning  away  with  disenchantment  or  disgust  from  his 
father's  vocation,  is  not  certain  that  he  can  do  better  in  some 
other,  and  does  not  wander  about  and  waste  the  most  precious 
years  of  his  life  in  finding  a  good  opening  elsewhere,  to  be- 
come only  a  bungler  in  the  end  because  the  years  nature  de- 
signed for  apprenticeship  were  not  utilized.  Boys  thus  at  any 
rate  escape  in  the  later  teens  the  dawn  of  the  sad  and  para- 
lyzing sense  that  it  is  now  too  late.  Under  this  German  sys- 
tem, the  boy  becomes  self-supporting  and  marries  earlier  and 
so  probably  has  more  children,  is  doubtless  more  content,  feels 
more  complacency  if  not  pride  in  his  calling,  and  is  more  ef- 
fective in  it.  The  boy  who  deserts  his  father's  trade  must  feel 
that  the  latter  has  been  more  or  less  of  a  failure  in  it,  that  the 
experience  and  deftness  that  are  the  chief  products  of  his  life 
are  not  valuable;  while  if  he  follows  it,  it  is  because  the  par- 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  591 

ent  seems  to  have  made  a  winning  fight  in  the  battle  of  life, 
so  that  he  is  accepted  and  not  repudiated  as  a  special  teacher. 
Finally,  stock  school  matter  and  methods  are  almost  sta- 
tionary, not  to  say  stagnant.  Much  now  is  as  it  was  genera- 
tions ago,  and  some  things  as  they  were  centuries  ago.  In- 
dustry, on  the  other  hand,  is  very  rapidly  changing  and,  if  not 
giving  us  a  new  world  every  year,  is  transforming  everything 
at  an  ever-accelerating  rate.  Business  and  trade  are  always 
finding  new  ways,  discovering  new  fields,  transforming,  super- 
seding old  processes,  making  inventions,  discoveries,  with  the 
number  of  new  patents  increasing  each  decade  in  almost  geo- 
metrical ratio.  This  is  not  the  same  world  industrially  or  in- 
tellectually that  middle-aged  men  were  born  in.  Progress  is 
now  almost  at  breakneck  speed  and  is  constantly  casting  many 
things  once  supremely  worth  knowing  and  doing  as  rubbish 
to  the  void.  When  the  slow-jogging  school  is  attached  to  in- 
dustry and  trade  in  a  way  that  really  helps  pupils  to  get  and 
keep  abreast  of  things  as  they  are,  there  is  of  course  always 
a  strain  and  a  jolt,  as  if  an  old  stagecoach  were  caught  by  a 
rapid  trolley  or  auto.  To  be  and  keep  modern  in  the  indus- 
trial field  means  perpetual  advance,  a  readiness  to  change  at 
any  time  and  at  any  point,  and  to  realize  that  it  may  to-mor- 
row be  necessary  to  go  back  and  start  all  over  again.  Thus 
it  is  no  wonder  that  those  pedagogues  who  cling  to  old  and 
routine  ways  are  afraid  of  push  and  go,  and  prefer  to  row 
about  in  shallow  eddies  rather  than  to  hoist  sail  and  push 
out  into  deep  water  and  central  currents.  Not  a  few  of  these 
just  now  look  upon  the  tendency  toward  vocational  training 
with  alarm,  for  their  pedagogic  slumbers  are  perturbed  by 
anxious  and  disquieting  dreams.  One  of  them  lately  con- 
fessed to  me,  almost  in  a  whisper,  that  there  was  little  doubt 
that  now  there  was  a  widespread,  secret  conspiracy  on  the 
part  of  captains  of  industry  to  capture  the  schools  and  sub- 
ordinate them  to  their  interests.  It  does  seem  at  first  view 
to  joggle  the  recapitulatory  theory  which  holds  that  a  child 
must  repeat,  if  but  rapidly,  the  long  developmental  history  of 
the  race,  because  here  the  problem  is  to  take  the  very  latest 
from  the  very  forefront  of  the  advance  line  and  pass  it  quickly 
back  and  down  to  the  children  and.  instead  of  leaving  them 
in  some  past  stages  of  civilization,   rush   them  to  the   fore. 


592  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

But  those  of  us  who  hold  to  the  phyletic  view  can,  and  in- 
deed must,  also  advocate  this  ultra-precocious  modernism,  be- 
cause it  is  only  a  part  of  education  which,  to  be  sound,  must 
be  at  the  same  time  firmly  anchored  to  the  past,  so  that  no 
good  thing-  in  it  shall  be  lost,  and  also  wide  open  to  the  future. 
Adjustment  to  both  these  claims,  when  made  complete  so  that 
each  is  seen,  felt,  and  given  its  due,  is  the  best  training  to 
sanity  and  expansion  of  soul,  just  as  in  religion  the  optimum 
combination  is  the  most  scientific,  critical,  individual  insiglit 
coupled  with  the  oldest  and  deepest  racial  feeling.  Either 
without  the  other  is  dangerous — the  old  if  unbalanced  by  its 
opposite  makes  for  stagnation,  the  new  alone  for  shallow 
neologism. 

These  industrial  new  steps  to  date  mean  advance  from  the 
old  uniformity  because  production  is  extremely  diversified  and 
more  and  more  so.  With  a  core  of  identical  matter,  special- 
ization in  education  comes  ever  earlier  and  branches  ever 
wider.  Even  in  the  grades,  there  is  more  or  less  in  each 
course  leading  to  one  destination  that  has  nothing  in  common 
with  any  other.  We  have  sinned  greatly  against  the  diver- 
sification and  the  wide  range  of  variation  in  the  soul  itself; 
have  assumed  that  there  is  one  best  way  when  there  are  in 
fact  many,  each  one  best  for  a  certain  type  of  mind,  interest, 
or  calling;  and  therefore  each  more  truly  educative  than  any 
other  for  those  it  fits.  Industrial  education  thus  brings  a  far 
greater  good  to  a  far  greater  number,  and  so  gives  greater 
aggregate  advancement  and  development.  It  picks  up  those 
who  had  ceased  to  grow  and  spurs  them  on  again.  It  saves 
innumerable  arrested  and  aborted  life  careers;  it  is  all  things 
to  all  men ;  it  brings  down  to  the  grades  all  the  merits  of  the 
elective  system,  greatly  enhanced  and  enriched,  since  trades 
are  more  numerous  than  academic  departments;  it  quickens 
faculties  that  would  have  slumbered  on  indefinitely;  it  should 
teach  the  teachers  of  the  old  regime  that  their  little  kit  of 
knowledge  and  skills  which  constitute  their  craft  is  only  one 
among  scores  of  others,  each  having  just  as  much  really  hu- 
man and  educational  value  as  their  own,  if  not  more.  It  has 
already  sent  hundreds  of  the  brightest  pedagogues  to  the  shop, 
store,  and  factory  to  study  the  new  things  they  need  to  know 
to  g^ide  this  new  movement.  They  realize  that  business  people 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  593 

and  craftsmen  are  always  struggling  to  solve  new  problems 
in  original  ways,  spurred  thereto  by  the  stern  necessity  of 
livelihood  and  competition.  The  motives,  too,  of  charity  and 
general  weal  are  thus  added  to  their  pedagogic  motives.  They 
feel  themselves  a  more  vital  part  of  a  great  nation  at  work  and 
not  sheltered  and  aloof  from  it.  Thus,  too,  the  school  will 
regain  its  now  losing  hold  on  public  appreciation  and  the  good 
will  of  taxpayers,  and  the  latter  will  surely  if  slowly  learn 
that  all  that  has  been  done  for  the  public  school  so  far  is  but 
the  beginning  of  the  vastly  more  it  will  pay  to  do,  and  that 
betimes,  in  conserving  the  most  precious  of  all  capital  and  raw 
material:  viz.,  individual  workmanly  knowledge  and  effi- 
ciency, till  we  shall  come  to  understand  that  the  best  workman 
is  the  best  man,  and  that  health  and  deftness  of  body  and  soul 
are  the  most  precious  parts  of  the  industrial  resources  of  the 
country. 

The  psychological  beginnings  of  the  movement  toward  in- 
dustrial education  probably  go  back  to  Semler's  mathematical 
and  mechanical  Rcalschiilc  in  Halle,  1708,  or  rather  to  the  first 
Realschule  of  the  present  type  by  Hecker  in  Berlin,  1747.  This 
great  movement,  which  the  world  knows  by  heart,  had  sound 
scientific  foundations.  Soon  after  the  w-ar  of  1870,  which 
marked  a  new  dispensation  in  this  field,  Germany  began  to 
devote  her  chief  educational  endeavors  to  industrial  lines  of 
education,  in  order  that,  although  a  poor  country,  she  might 
develop  national  power  along  manufacturing  and  commercial 
lines.  Now,  her  leadership  here  is  undisputed,  and  especially 
in  the  field  of  applied  chemistry  enormously  profitable.  At 
the  Badischc  Aniline-  tind  Soda-Fabrik  alone,  from  100  to 
200  university  trained  chemists  and  engineers  are  employed 
to  short-circuit  and  economize  processes;  another  has  148, 
another  145,  another  129,  another  128  chemists.'  Some  19 
years  ago  the  iMiglish  technical  college  at  I-'insbury  was  the 
best  equipped  in  electrical  technology,  perhaps  surpassing  all 
others  in  Europe,  but  tiiis  is  now  far  exceeded  by  the  insti- 
tutions at  Darmstadt,  Stuttgart,  and  Charlottenlnirn.  tlio  lat- 
ter costing  $2,500,000  and  opened  in    1884  with    llelniholtz 


'  E.  D.  Howard:  The  Cause  and  Kxtcnt  of  the  Rtrent  Industrial  Progress  in 
Germany.    Boston,  Houjjhton,  Mifflin,  1907.     147  p.    Sec  p.  Oo  d  scq. 
39 


594  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

at  the  head,  a  fusion  of  an  architectural  academy  founded  in 
1799  admitting  boys  of  14  and  a  technical  school  of  182 1 
which  admitted  boys  of  12,  both  being  under  the  ministry  of 
commerce.  These  had  declined,  and  now  the  new  institution 
of  vastly  higher  grade  is  placed  under  the  ministry  of  edu- 
cation, receiving  only  those  who  have  graduated  from  a  first- 
class  Reolschule  or  Gyninasium.  Fabian  Ware  says  England 
is  to-day  50  years  behind  this  and  cannot  equal  it  until  its 
secondary  education  is  radically  reconstructed. 

One  reason  for  the  success  of  industrial  education  in  Teutonic 
lands  is  a  pan-German  law  forbidding  the  employment  of  all  chil- 
dren under  17  in  factories  and  workshops,  leaving  thus  3  years  free. 
This  was  aided  by  the  law  of  1901,  which  declares  that  all  workmen 
under  18  may  attend  official  continuation  schools  and  that  local 
councils  may  make  this  obligatory,  as  Saxony  has  done.  Attendance 
is  also  urged  as  a  public  duty  for  both  military  and  commercial 
reasons;  and  love  of  country  must  precede  individual  liberty  here. 
The  Wiirtemberg  law,  operative  in  1909,  compels  all  localities  having 
for  3  years  40  youth  under  18  engaged  in  industrial  or  commercial 
pursuits  to  establish  a  school  for  them  and  to  maintain  it  as  long 
as  the  number  of  such  youth  does  not  fall  below  30  for  3  successive 
years.  The  term  "  industrial  and  commercial  pursuits  "  is  made  to 
include  factory  hands,  day  laborers,  clerks,  errand  boys,  and  thus 
is  given  the  widest  scope.  The  opportunity  to  attend  is  now  given 
day  times,  rather  than  evenings,  Sundays  or  holidays,  as  before. 
Each  must  have  at  least  280  hours  of  schooling  per  year.  Gewerhe 
schools  are  usually  found  only  in  large  industrial  centers,  perhaps 
besides  or  with  the  trade  schools,  the  magnificent  textile  school  at 
Crayfield  being  a  good  type  with  its  evening,  Sunday  and  day  classes, 
most  of  those  students  having  finished  secondary  courses.  The 
training  is  in  every  branch  of  weaving,  dyeing,  finishing,  and  spin- 
ning. There  are  now  13  Prussian  schools  dealing  with  textiles, 
varying  with  local  conditions,  e.  g.,  cotton  only  at  Gladbach.  The 
Prussian  especially  has  a  horror  of  short  cuts,  wishes  to  be  thorough, 
aims  at  the  greatest  collective  ability  and  to  avoid  stultifying  the 
national  aim  by  individuation  as  in  France. 

Under  this  system  the  increased  efficiency  of  German  workmen 
has  grown  rapidly.  Our  Consul-General  Mason  at  Berlin  says  that 
our  reliance  upon  superficial  education  and  the  natural  adaptability 
of  young  men  will,  if  pursued,  neutralize  most  of  the  advantage 
which  our  country  enjoys  through  its  natural  resources  and  ad- 
vantageous geographical  position  for  South  America.  Mexico,  and 
the  Asiatic  trade.  The  so-called  "  American  danger  "  in  Germany 
has  dwindled  so  that  the  fatherland  has  little  to  fear  from  our  com- 
petition in  the  field  of  manufactured  goods.     It  depends  more  largely 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  595 

on  export  trade  and  there  is  a  natural  national  ambition  to  "  best  " 
the  foreigner  in  his  own  field.  This  highly  trained  labor  costs  less 
than  half  what  it  does  here  and  the  laborer  is  tractable  and  works 
longer.  Schneider  says :  "  The  efficiency  of  the  American  workman 
has  decreased  during  the  last  ten  years."  Snowden  in  his  "  Indus- 
trial Improvement  Schools  of  Wiirtemberg  "  says  that  in  the  single 
item  of  machinery  and  tools,  Germany's  sales  to  the  United  States 
doubled  in  the  5  years  ending  1905;  while  our  sales  to  Germany  in 
this  line  totaled  but  J  of  what  they  were  5  years  ago.  In  the  same 
time  Germany  has  doubled  her  exports  to  England  of  finished  prod- 
ucts and  receives  only  J  of  her  former  imports.  In  the  machinery 
and  tools  she  exports  to  Sweden,  Denmark,  Argentina,  and  Chile  she 
has  doubled,  to  China  quintupled,  to  Canada  quadrupled,  and  to 
Portugal  tripled  what  she  sold  them  in  1900.  A  pessimistic  writer 
reviewing  the  situation  says :  "  Ten  years  from  now  it  will  not  be  a 
question  whether  we  shall  have  an  eight-hour  day  or  not,  but 
whether  there  will  be  any  work  for  all  our  industrial  army."  The 
German  stress  is  laid  not  upon  developing  leaders,  but  upon  raising 
the  average  of  collective  efficiency ;  and  in  this,  according  to  the 
verdict  of  most  experts,  she  is  right. 

With  characteristic  thoroughness,  Germany  would  begin  nearer 
the  bottom  of  her  educational  system,  and  lay  deep  and  strong  the 
foundations  which  are  represented  in  a  type  of  the  Volkschulc,  con- 
necting with  the  kindergarten  paper  and  cardboard  tents,  ladders, 
squares,  rings,  windmills,  baskets,  disks,  some  of  which  illustrate,  a 
little  later,  fractions  and  geography,  with  the  aid  of  paste  work, 
swords,  kites,  frames,  bows  and  arrows,  boats ;  molding  clay  and 
sand  with  wooden  tools  that  harden  in  colors ;  bricks  are  notched, 
made  into  arches,  pyramids,  hexagons,  plinths,  coping  stones,  rough 
tiles,  spheres,  etc.  Then  there  is  work  in  wood  pulp,  calico  for 
binding,  edging,  glazed  and  other  papers,  ribbon  for  portfolios,  glue 
for  album  cases,  paint  boxes,  pocketbooks ;  also  unbroken  rings, 
money  boxes,  letter  holders,  and  caskets.  The  common  tools :  ham- 
mer, tongs,  pinchers,  saw,  file,  gimlet,  chisel,  and  plane  are  used ;  and 
for  woodworking,  a  cooper's  bench  of  a  peculiar  pattern,  used  also 
by  wheelwrights  with  a  foot  clinch,  has  been  devised ;  and  grinding 
and  sharpening  of  tools  is  thought  a  valuable  part  of  education.  In 
Leipzig,  too,  picture  frames,  ink  stands,  key  holders,  spools,  winders, 
shovel  handles,  harness,  pegs,  barred  gates,  milk  stools,  savvhorscs — 
all  for  use,  arc  made.  Carving  comes  next  and  is  rather  elaborate. 
Bent  wire,  although  much  opposed  in  Germany,  has  often  served  to 
introduce  metal  work.  Thus  are  made  buttonhooks,  mathematical 
slides,  bill  files,  .Scgcner's  wheel,  centrifugal  ring,  magnetic  needle 
with  stand,  clamps,  tunnels,  cups  for  measuring  fluids.  Molding  also 
had  to  overcome  much  opjwsition  at  first  in  Germany,  but  has  gained 
great  favor  and  at  Jena  goes  naturally  along  with  teaching  of 
civilization  in  the  lowest  gymnasial  classes,  where  the  school  bench 
is  by  a  very  simple  device  transformed  to  a  work  table. 


596  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

Very  different  is  the  story  of  this  movement  in  this  country. 
Dr.  C.  M.  Woodward/  who  if  not  the  father  of  manual  training 
here  has  done  more  than  anyone  to  diffuse  it,  ascribes  the  place  of 
honor  to  John  Boynton  who,  in  1865,  laid  the  foundations  for  the 
Polytechnic  School  of  Worcester,  Mass.,  to  provide  instruction  in 
branches  essential  to  life,  but  not  usually  taught  in  public  schools, 
with  a  machine  shop  on  a  commercial  basis,  with  20  branches,  and 
skilled  workmen  to  instruct.  C.  O.  Thompson  with  great  originality 
developed  a  unique  combination  here  of  machine  shop  and  engineer- 
ing school.  This  was  before  Delafosse  developed  the  famous  Mos- 
cow method.  Then  came  the  Stevens  Institute  with  shops  in  1871 ; 
the  St.  Louis  movement,  somewhat  based  on  that  of  Russia,  in  1872, 
which  stressed  carpenter's  and  mechanic's  work  with  drawing,  etc. 
At  the  Philadelphia  Exposition  of  1876,  which  marked  an  epoch  here, 
the  Russian  method  had  a  remarkably  clear  and  definite  exhibition, 
and  Professor  J.  D.  Runkle  promulgated  its  methods  and  in  1887 
opened  a  school  of  mechanics  arts.  Then  came  the  St.  Louis 
Manual  Training  School  in  1879,  reducing  for  the  first  time  in  this 
country  the  age  of  admission  to  school  shops  to  14,  with  a  3-years' 
course,  and  hours  equally  divided  between  study  and  manual  train- 
ing. This  method  lays  great  stress  upon  tools.  Then  came,  in 
order,  the  Baltimore  public  manual  training  high  school  in  1883;  the 
Belfield  school  at  Chicago  in  1884;  the  Scott  manual  training  school 
at  Toledo  the  same  year;  this  movement  was  also  taken  up  by  the 
College  of  the  City  of  New  York;  and  the  Philadelphia  manual 
training  high  school  was  opened  in  1885 ;  and  from  there  on  the 
movement  has  spread  very  rapidly  until  there  are  now  about  150 
secondary  schools  that  give  more  or  less  of  this  work  and  about 
30  known  as  manual  training,  technical,  or  mechanics  arts  high 
schools.  The  time  given  to  practical  subjects  varies  from  4  to  12 
hours  a  week.  Some  depart  more,  some  less,  widely  from  the  old 
cultural  ideal.  Manual  training  is  now  given  in  more  than  half  the 
1,300  city  school  systems  of  the  country.^  Nevertheless,  these 
schools  are  too  isolated,  unpractical,  and  unsocial  with  too  little  prac- 
tical content.  These  manual  courses  are  rather  highly  curriculized 
with  precise  steps,  standards,  logical  order,  great  insistence  on  pre- 
cision and  stages  in  the  use  of  each  of  the  12  tools  which  are 
stressed  with  hygienic  justification  of  all  the  characteristic  move- 
ments and  attitudes  and  are  generally  taught  with  enthusiastic  belief 
that  they  are  at  once  a  grammar,  quintessence  and  open  sesame  to 
the  trades,  that  they  make  them  as  purely  cultural  and  as  near  a 
liberal  education  as  is  possible,  although  in  this  respect  they  are  less 
sophisticated  and  have  a  much  larger  proportion  of  matter  to  method 
than    does    sloyd.     It   was    certainly    a    pedagogic   triumph    to    have 

1  The  Manual  Training  School.    Boston,  Heath,  1887.    366  p. 
^  A.  W.  Richards:  From  the  Practical  to  the  Intellectual  in  the  Shop.    N.  E. 
A.  Report,  1902,  pp.  550-558. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  597 

passed  the  challenge  of  the  culturists  and  allayed  their  suspicions  of 
things  useful.  Sometimes  these  manual  courses  have  been  directed 
by  dyed-in-the-wool  classical  teachers,  as  if  in  order  to  depurate 
them  of  anything  but  purely  cultural  influences.  They  are  very 
often  taken  by  motor-minded  boys,  who  do  not  do  very  well  in  their 
studies,  but  can  use  their  hands.  There  is  usually  no  vital  contact 
with  the  market,  for  nothing  is  made  to  sell,  or  with  the  most  vital 
needs  of  boys,  for  almost  never  is  the  plain,  obvious  law  of  com- 
mon sense  observed  that  only  the  end  can  sanctify  the  means.  Some 
have  therefore  even  urged  that  young  children  should  make  a  series  of 
toys,  and  older  children  a  series  of  simple  physical  and  other  scientific 
apparatus.  This,  it  has  been  said,  will  quicken  the  intellect  and  give 
the  right  motive  to  work  as  nothing  else  ever  tried  can  do.  Indeed, 
this  general  principle  of  the  end  inspiring  the  means  has  been 
demonstrated  over  and  over  again  to  the  satisfaction  of  everybody 
but  purblind  pedagogues,  who  still  persist  in  having  boys  and  girls 
make  joints,  links,  and  a  graded  course  of  objects  of  no  use  to  a 
living  soul,  but  designed  only  to  show  the  consummate  perfection  of 
the  system.  If  a  little  more  advanced,  boys  make  tables,  cabinets, 
chairs,  book  shelves  and  things  that  the  teachers  think  they  ought  to 
be  interested  in,  but  which  are  pretty  well  out  toward  the  peripheral 
limits  of  their  actual  zests  instead  of  at  their  very  center.  That 
manual  training  fits  for  most  trades  is,  in  many  cases,  a  preposterous 
delusion.  Over  and  over  again,  manufacturers  have  discriminated 
against  boys  with  this  training,  because  they  had  so  much  more  to 
learn,  the  importance  of  which  they  did  not  believe  in,  because  they 
must  unlearn  so  much  and  relearn  it  by  new  ways,  and  because  they 
came  to  their  actual  job  with  the  conceit  of  knowledge  and  skill 
that  made  them  indocile.  The  manual  training  movement  has  done 
and  will  continue  to  do  the  country  great  and  good  service ;  but  now 
that  its  limitations  are  more  and  more  painfully  apparent,  there  is  a 
great  and  growing  number  who  believe  that  its  merits  will  sooner 
or  later  be  seen  to  have  been  very  partial  and  offset  by  defects,  and 
that  it  was  really  useful  chiefly  as  making  headway  against  the 
invincible  prejudice  of  the  pedagogic  mind  against  any  training  that 
has  direct  practical  value.  Instead  of  the  extreme  ideal  of  the 
culturist  that  school  is  a  place  where  nothing  useful  is  taught,  the 
new  slogan  is  that  the  school  should  be  a  place  where  nothing  is 
taught  that  is  not  useful,  and  that  the  very  first  duty  the  state  owes 
to  its  children  is  to  make  them  self-supporting. 

One  of  the  gravest  defects  of  this  movement  is  that  many  of 
these  schools  do  not  fit  for  the  next  stage  of  education,  and  do  not 
lead  on  by  direct  continuity  to  the  technical  schools  or  colleges,  like 
the  .Sibley  School  at  Cornell  or  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology (1865).  We  have  a  few  rather  disquieting  figures  from 
some  of  these  schools  concerning  the  destination  of  their  graduates, 
the  large  majority  in  some  cases  not  even  entering  any  industry  or 
anything  else  for  which  their  course  has  prepared  them.     This  does 


598  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

not  apply  to  some  of  the  newer  or  manual  training  technical  high 
schools,  where  the  pupils  do  go  on,  but  most  of  these  schools  classify 
according  to,  and  subordinate  the  stages  of  work  to,  the  tool  and 
are  oversystematic  and  rigorous,  with  pedantic  strain  upon  accuracy 
and  with  almost  no  connection  with  science  on  the  one  hand,  nor 
with  the  great  outlying  industries  about  them,  on  the  other,  so  that 
they  are  too  abstract. 

A  Proposed  Substitute  for  Manual  Training. — There  is 
a  break  of  continuity  between  school  and  shop  work,  and 
there  is  more  or  less  antagonism  and  waste.  School-teachers 
can  never  learn  to  teach  a  trade  well,  and  foremen  can  never 
teach  it  in  a  way  to  entirely  satisfy  the  pedagogue.  Moreover, 
the  contrast  in  passing  from  one  to  the  other  is  extreme  and 
confusing  to  the  pupil,  so  radically  different  is  the  method  and 
spirit.  Although  the  plan  of  Columbia  to  train  shop  fore- 
men to  be  teachers  on  the  one  hand,  and  while  the  Labor 
Unions  on  the  other,  might  do  very  much,  there  will  probably 
always  be  need  for  some  intermediate  institution  to  link  the 
two.  Manual  training  has  sought  to  supply  this  bridge  from 
school  to  shop,  and,  while  many  have  traversed  it,  it  was  badly 
constructed,  its  very  plan  was  temporary,  and  it  is  now  totter- 
ing. Its  too  sudden  demolition  just  now  would  be  disastrous ; 
but  in  view  of  this  situation,  there  is  one  new  departure  that 
has  often  been  suggested,  many  elements  of  which  have  been 
successfully  tried,  some  here,  some  there,  which  has  always 
lain  very  near  my  heart  and  which  it  is  now  high  time  to 
have  seriously  tested  in  some  experimental  way :  viz.,  a  cur- 
riculum of  toy  making  for  lower,  and  simple  scientific  ap- 
paratus for  higher  grades.  This  would  be  a  far  better  in- 
troduction to  shop  schools,  would  have  the  great  advantage 
of  beginning  during  the  years  w^hen  most  boys  now  leave 
school,  and  would  attract  them  to  stay.  It  would  naturally 
and  easily  correlate  with  the  playground  movement,  for  many 
implements  for  many  games  could  be  made.  It  would  be  re- 
capitulatory and  humanistic,  for  most  of  the  best  plays  and 
games  are  dwindled  and  ancient  forms  of  adult  occupations, 
so  that  in  play  the  child  is,  in  a  till  lately  undreamed-of  sense, 
repeating  the  history  of  the  race.  The  toys  which  are  offered 
to  American  children  are  a  disgrace  and  insult  to  the  true 
nature  of  childhood.     Instead  of  being  masterpieces  of  sim- 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  599 

plification  of  everything  possible  that  adults  care  for,  they  are 
machine-made,  monotonous,  cheap,  antique,  and  utterly  fail 
of  the  true  purpose  of  toys,  which  is  to  introduce  the  child  to 
adult  life  smalled  down  to  the  dimensions  of  his  mind  and 
hand.  By  the  method  here  proposed,  the  products  would  be 
used  by  the  maker.  They  could  never  interfere  seriously  with 
markets  or  prices,  and  would  appeal  strongly  to  the  imagina- 
tion and  intellect,  which  are  vastly  further  developed  in  chil- 
dren than  their  power  to  produce.  One  of  the  capital  errors 
of  most  schemes  of  industrial  education  is  that  the  appeal  is 
mainly  limited  to  the  hand,  and  the  vastly  greater  power  of 
the  child  to  appreciate  and  understand  than  to  do  is  not  recog- 
nized. I  would  lay  it  down  as  a  law  of  universal  application 
that  in  every  course  of  manipulation,  no  matter  how  practical 
and  laborious,  three  quarters  of  the  appeal  should  be  to  the 
interest  and  intelligence  of  the  child,  which  is  far  in  advance 
of,  and  growing  far  more  rapidly  than  his  manual  power  dur- 
ing the  few  years  that  just  precede  and  follow  pubescence. 
Manual  training  courses  directly  tend  to  divorce  mind  and 
hand.  The  impression  of  labor  it  leaves  upon  the  pupil's  mind 
is  that  it  is  monotonous,  mechanical  drudgery  with  pedantic 
insistence  upon  accuracy,  and  is  pretty  remote  from  utility. 
Over  against  all  this,  most  of  the  brain  work  of  most  of  the 
best  minds  of  our  age  and  its  very  heart  and  zests  have  been 
given  to  agriculture,  manufacture,  and  commerce.  Here  the 
struggle  for  survival  has  been  most  intense.  Manual  training 
has  proven  itself  notoriously  lacking  in  appeal  to  head  or 
heart.  It  is  a  depressing  and  woeful  introduction  to  what 
will  be  to  most  the  business  of  life.  This  is  all  the  sadder 
because  somewhere  along  the  lines  here  indicated  lie  the 
rich  mines  of  native  and  long  ago  stored-up,  human  in- 
terests which,  if  we  can  only  find  and  work  them,  will 
run  the  whole  educational  machinery  during  these  most 
critical  years  with  astounding  energy  and  with  incalculable 
economy. 

The  primal  spur  to  all  industry  was  and  is  to  own  and 
use  the  finished  product.  This  was  and  is  the  goal  and  in- 
spiration and  the  process  was  only  a  means  to  that  end. 
Utensils,  shelter,  dress,  ornament — all  were  desired,  and  so 
man  set  to  work  to  make  them,  and  he  was  interested  in  his 


6oo  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

toil  just  so  far  as  it  gratified  his  wish.  Our  educational 
methods  di^'^orce  these  two  and  so  resemble  slavery,  because 
the  children  have  no  usufruct  of  their  efforts.  Often  the 
things  they  make  are  for  exhibition  purposes  only  or  are 
owned  by  the  school  or  for  its  use,  in  which  their  zest  is  in 
large  degree  an  artifact.  Possibly  it  is  for  their  parents  or 
the  home  or,  at  best,  is  sold  and  they  may  have  a  share  of 
the  price.  The  utilities  to  which  the  products  of  the  school 
factory  are  put  are  rarely  what  they  want  so  badly  that  they 
welcome  the  effort  it  takes  to  make  them.  The  results,  to  be 
sure,  are  more  tangible  than  those  of  book  study;  but  is  it 
not  an  obvious  commonplace  that  it  makes  an  immense  peda- 
gogic difference  what  they  make,  and  that  the  best  results  are 
really  where  the  finished  handiwork  plays  a  vital  role  in  their 
lives?  Play  is  their  strongest  passion;  hence  their  first  in- 
terest is  to  use,  and  the  next  to  obtain  money  to  buy,  what 
they  wish.  It  would  seem  therefore  to  be  a  sun-clear  prin- 
ciple that  their  first  industrial  endeavors  should  be  directed 
toward  making  toys,  alloyed  with  only  as  much  educational 
value  as  they  can  take  without  loss.  Play  is  now  happily 
coming  to  its  own;  and  the  upper  grammar  grades  represent 
the  point  of  chief  bifurcation  between  play  and  work,  so  that 
the  latter  develops  best  where  the  play  impulse  can  be  most 
directly  turned  on  and  this  difference  obscured  as  long  as  pos- 
sible. To  work  at  a  favorite  toy  is  playing  at  work ;  and  this 
is  needful  to  bring  the  best  that  is  in  the  boy  to  bear.  Even 
tools  and  implements  of  reduced  dimensions  or  simplified  are 
toys.  The  greater  the  number  and  variety  of  these  he  has 
smalled  down  and  elementarized  to  the  dimensions  of  his  hand 
to  make,  his  mind  to  comprehend,  and  his  power  to  use,  the 
more  valuable  the  educational  process.  Thus  in  these  days 
of  happy  renaissance  of  playgrounds,  plays,  and  games,  we 
find  our  urban  children  need  to  be  taught  how  and  what  to 
play,  and  so  industrial  education  should  have,  as  one  of  its 
earliest  chief  ends,  to  help  in  this  process.  Hence  the  more 
and  better  the  children  work,  the  more  and  better  they  should 
play.  A  rich  chapter  of  psychology  might  here  be  written 
from  well-established  data,  were  proof  of  this  principle  nec- 
essary. 

What  then  is  the  practical  proposition  to  use  this  impulse 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  6oi 

here?  It  is  nothing  less  radical  than  to  supplement  most  of 
both  sloyd  and  manual  training  as  now  current  by  a  course 
in  toy  making  in  tiie  earlier,  and  in  simple  scientific  instru- 
ment making  in  the  later,  stages  of  preliniiiiary  industrial  edu- 
cation before  the  time  has  fully  come  to  train  in  specific  in- 
dustries ;  and  thus  to  bridge  the  way  from  school  to  shop  more 
effectively  than  is  now  done,  as  well  as  to  help  fill  up  the  at 
present  half-wasted  years  below  and  even  into  the  teens.  This 
is  perfectly  feasible  and  would  involve  far  less  loss  or  even 
change  than  might  at  first  seem  of  material  organization,  etc., 
and  it  would  bring  immense  pedagogic  reinforcement,  both 
during  this  stage  and  in  its  later  after-effects  upon  the  en- 
tire spirit  and  method  of  adult  labor,  so  that  I  cannot  see 
why  it  should  not  be  begim  at  once.  The  first  step  is  to  in- 
ventory the  children's  interests,  visit  toy  shops,  find  out  the 
resources  of  the  various  nations  most  in  advance  of  us  in  toy 
making,  like  Germany,  Japan,  and  France,  and,  laying  other 
races  and  ages  under  tribute,  to  select  with  the  greatest  care 
each  object  to  make,  until  we  are  certain  of  the  pedagogic 
justification  of  everything  and,  when  a  list  is  chosen,  curricu- 
lize  it  according  to  age,  taste,  and  difficulty,  and  proceed  to 
realize  the  scheme.  The  extent  of  the  resources  in  this  field 
is  now  amazing.  As  a  nation,  we  are  at  a  very  low  ebb,  or 
have  been  till  lately,  in  both  the  will  and  the  way  of  adapting 
things  which  adults  use  to  childhood  or  reducing  men's  work 
to  boy's  play.  Besides  toys  now  actually  in  use  in  various 
parts  of  the  world,  the  recent  rapid  progress  of  invention  and 
science  has  opened  vast  new  possibilities  here,  that  are  as  yet 
nowhere  improved  for  the  young  as  they  would  be,  were 
we  not  so  engrossed  with  mature  occupations  to  the  unprece- 
dented neglect  of  the  young.  Even  the  possibilities  within 
our  reach  are  little  known  and  still  less  utilized.  I  am.  of 
course,  far  from  being  able  to  lay  down  here  what  should  be 
done  in  detail,  for  this  would  require  a  long,  careful,  and 
cooperative  survey,  although  some  things  in  the  right  direc- 
tion may  be  roughly  indicated.  A  properly  chosen  committee 
in  a  year  or  two  of  investigation  could  open  up  a  broad,  new 
way  for  education.  Indeed,  toy  e.xhibitioiis  and  congresses, 
as  they  have  l)een  held  in  Europe,  would  of  course  give  great 
stimulus  and  aid. 


6o2  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

It  should  be  premised  and  never  forgotten  that  from  the 
standpoint  of  industrial  education  the  recorded  history  of  the 
race  has  not  yet  been  utilized  aright.  Dewey's  efforts  in 
Chicago  years  ago  to  lead  young  children  over  the  pathway  of 
the  history  of  labor  were  exceedingly  ingenious  and  sugges- 
tive, even  if  there  was  only  a  limited  adaptation  of  phyletic 
to  ontogenetic.  Paleolithic  and  Troglodyte  periods  hardly 
correspond  to  the  stone  cutting  or  masonry  of  to-day.  The 
so-called  Bronze  Age,  so  far  as  we  know,  is  not  very  much 
represented  in  childhood.  Possibly  clay  modeling  and  the  ele- 
ments of  pottery  belong  rather  early.  It  may  be  that  the  mold- 
ing and  hammering  of  lead  and  whittling  belong  here;  and 
significant  too  are  the  lessons  drawn  in  Chapter  I  from  the 
first  zests  of  children  in  points,  edges,  strings,  clubs,  and 
things  to  strike  with.  The  Nomad  Age  is  better  represented 
in  truancy  and  runaways,  and  suggests  excursions.  The 
Hunting  Age  correlates  with  the  sling,  crossbow  and  fishing 
passion.  No  boy  ever  invented  a  boomerang.  Domestication 
is  represented  by  pets,  and  perhaps  by  the  horse  school  of 
California;  it  may  be  by  keeping  bees,  pigeons,  dogs,  etc. 
In  weaving,  skin  dressing  and  cloth  making,  as  well  as  shelter, 
we  doubtless  have  atavistic  motivations  from  the  tepee  up. 
Play  in  general  is  the  rehearsal  in  the  midst  of  our  own  life 
of  very  ancient  paleopsychic  activities  which  belong  earlier  in 
the  race.  Thus,  on  the  whole,  I  believe  the  very  best  possible 
practical  field  for  the  recapitulation  theory  is  just  at  this  stage, 
and  that,  therefore,  we  should  find  powers  at  our  disposal, 
could  we  learn  how  to  turn  them  on,  that  would  enable  us  to 
develop  before  and  perhaps  a  little  into  the  teens  the  very  best 
liberal  and  humanistic  basis  for  later  special  training  that  in- 
dustrial education  can  ever  possibly  expect  to  have. 

I  append  a  few  simple  hints  whacked  together  at  my  writing 
desk  in  the  most  reprehensible  way  like  other  abstract  study  courses 
with  no  test  of  experience,  but  which  may  serve  to  illustrate  how  use 
should  dominate.  I  would  give  to  a  group  of  boys  in  a  school  a  shop, 
which  should  be  very  meagerly  furnished  at  first  so  that  tools  be 
kept  in  the  background  instead  of  pushed  to  the  fore,  roughly  sawn 
slats,  show  them  a  good  pattern  and  demand  that  they  make  a  yard- 
stick, foot-rule,  and  some  of  them  a  lo-foot  pole,  so  that  we  could 
measure  the  yard,  room,  desk,  blackboard,  their  own  height,  width, 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  603 

street,  sidewalk,  halls,  running  tracks,  etc.  Although  saw,  plane, 
scratch  awl,  and  square  should  be  at  hand,  I  would  allow  them  to 
whittle  freely  with  a  jackknife  if  they  preferred.  They  should  be 
told  a  little,  and  shown  more  about  laying  off  feet,  inches,  and 
fractions,  and  to  use  the  metric  system  on  one  side.  I  would  lay 
great  stress  upon  exactness,  not  at  all  in  finish  or  angles,  but  only 
in  lengths.  Then  each  should  measure  with  the  standards  he  had 
made  and  make  simple  computations,  always  having  several  indi- 
viduals on  each  task  for  comparison.  The  measuring  instinct  is 
strong  in  boys  and  it  might  be  applied  to  anything  else  they  chose. 
The  results  would,  of  course,  bring  out  many  personal  differences  in 
the  exactness  of  both  the  use  of  standards  and  the  workmanship. 
Those  who  thought  they  could  do  better  might  try  again  if  they 
wished.  On  this  work,  considerable  mathematics  might  be  based. 
Then  I  would  have  them  make  a  wooden  square  and  a  pair  of  rude 
compasses,  the  latter  with  whittled  joints  and  pegs  with  the  use  of 
a  gimlet,  with  a  pin  point  at  the  end  of  one  arm  and  a  hole  for 
chalk  or  pencil  at  the  other.  Very  clumsy  it  would  be,  and  each 
might  try  again;  but  if  it  were  a  true  square  and  if  the  compass 
could  be  made  to  draw  a  true  circle  of  different  sizes,  it  would  do, 
because  all  is  for  use  and  nothing  for  ornament  or  exhibition  and  the 
contrast  with  good  models,  which  should  always  be  at  hand,  would 
have  its  own  lesson.  The  compasses  made  by  different  boys  should 
have  a  large  range  of  size.  Each  boy  should  show  what  his  instru- 
ment can  do  on  paper,  the  blackboard,  the  floor,  perhaps  the  yard, 
and  various  exercises  in  construction  and  grouping  could  now  be 
done  combined  with  the  rule.  Other  ways  of  making  circles  should 
be  demonstrated  at  "  the  circle  age "  now  known  as  the  nascent 
period  when  it  occasionally  becomes  an  obsession.  Relations  should 
be  pointed  out  to  the  ellipse,  cylinder,  cone,  and  how  to  make  and 
draw  these  and  also  spheres. 

Next  perhaps  the  boys  should  learn  to  mortise  or  otherwise 
fasten  cross  sticks  together  at  right  angles  and  support  their  ends 
as  frames  for  kites ;  and  this  would  open  another  most  meaty  chapter 
for  the  boy,  whose  very  heart  follows  wherever  the  work  of  his 
hands  goes.  When  they  had  made  kites  of  different  patterns  that 
would  go,  I  would  appeal  strongly  to  the  intellect.  Every  good  kite 
book  should  be  at  hand  and  each  should  be  given  something  to  read, 
with  an  opportunity  to  pool  his  knowledge  for  the  benefit  of  others. 
The  youthful  mind  is  essentially  docile.  It  is  far  more  receptive 
than  it  is  active — a  truth  which  nowadays  our  industrial  educators 
are  prone  to  forget  because,  although  all  children  are  more  or  less 
motor-minded,  the  very  essence  f)f  childhood  is  its  exorbitant  capac- 
ity for  intake  of  impressions.  Depending  on  a  rank  crop  of  inter- 
est, I  should  expect  to  reap  very  speedily  in  this  rich  soil,  if  properly 
.sown  and  cultivated.  I  would  linger  here  and  branch  out  a  good 
deal  to  parakites.  box-kite  patterns,  and  many  details.  .Something  of 
history  would  encourage  efforts  to  imitate  or  even  parody  as  many 


6o4  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

things  as  have  been  done  with  kites  as  is  possible.*  Thus  skill  with 
the  fingers  should  be  harnessed  to  the  development  of  the  cerebral 
neurons,  as  it  should  always  be,  for  thus  only  are  we  working  in 
the  depths  and  not  in  the  shallows  of  the  soul.  The  boy's  reading 
should  thus  be  stimulated,  an  inner  eye  back  of  the  retina  opened; 
and  that  priceless,  although  semiconscious,  education  which  is  by 
hints  and  suggestions  and  is  far  more  rapid  and  indelible  than  any- 
thing in  the  examinable  memory  regions  of  the  soul  goes  on  by 
leaps  and  bounds.  Here  kites  often  have  their  season,  as  in  Japan 
it  is  March  when  the  sky  is  filled  with  many  patterns  of  them,  flown 
with  a  high  degree  of  skill  by  clubs  and  at  festivals.  There  are 
many  devices,  methods,  colors  of  covering,  modes  of  controlling 
dives  and  swirls,  steering,  self-registering  springs,  belaying  and  fric- 
tion cleats,  speeders,  modes  of  measuring  the  angle  of  elevation, 
signal  alphabets  and  codes,  the  box  kite  adapted  by  Hargrave  from 
the  Japanese  one-celled  prototype,  W.  A.  Eddy's  improvement  on  the 
Malay  kite,  Chanute's  ladder  kite  and  tandem  system,  J.  B.  Millet's 
observation  kite,'  Wise's  methods  for  night  signaling,'  life-saving 
kites  and  their  stories,  kites  carrying  telegraph  and  telephone  wires,* 
modes  of  recording  pull,  the  results  of  the  study  of  layers  of  the 
air,°  e.  g.,  that  the  Boston  east  wind  rarely  has  a  depth  of  more 
than  1,200  feet,  and  that  approaching  changes  of  temperature  appear 
6  to  12  hours  earlier  i,ooo  feet  up  than  they  do  on  the  ground, 
upward  and  downward  eruptions  and  thrusts  of  air  strata,  the  ratio 
of  altitude  to  the  barometer,  the  attention  birds  often  give  to  kites, 
their  use  in  towing  boats,  modes  of  guiding  them  by  springs  that 
Baden-Powell  used  with  his  kites,  the  largest  of  which  was  36  feet 
high,  duplex  kites  or  relays  to  buoy  a  line,  kites  as  drawers  of  carts, 
their  use  by  W.  L.  Moore,  of  the  Weather  Bureau,  who,  as  a  result 
of  3,835  observations  at  17  different  stations,  found  the  reduction  in 
temperature  about  5  degrees  for  each  1,000  feet  of  altitude,  these 
gradients  being  greatest  in  the  afternoon.* 

One  of  the  most  mind  quickening  of  all  domains  of  contemporary 
interest  and  activity  is  the  story  of  the  conquest  of  the  air.  No  one 
knows  the  origin  of  kites.     That  the  wind  will  lift  and  sustain  a 


^  See  G.  T.  Woglom:  Parakites;  a  Treatise  on  the  Making  and  Flying  of  Tail- 
less Kites  for  Scientific  Purposes  and  for  Recreation.  New  York,  Putnam,  1896. 
91  p. 

*  Scientific  Kite  Flying.    Century,  1897.    Vol.  32,  pp.  66-77. 

'H.  D.  Wise:  Experiments  with  Kites.    Century,  1897.    Vol.  32,  pp.  78-86. 

*  W.  A.  Eddy:  Photographing  from  Kites.  Century,  1897.  Vol.  32,  pp. 
86-91. 

"A.  L.  Rotch:  A  New  Field  for  Kites  in  Meteorology.  Science,  1901.  N.  S. 
vol.  14,  pp.  412-414.  Also  his  Meteorological  Observations  with  Kites  at  Sea. 
Science,  1901.     N.  S.  vol.  14,  pp.  896-897. 

*  E.  Milarch:  Aus  dem  Reich  der  Liifte.  Bonn,  Georgi,  1908.  155  p.  E. 
Rumpler:  Die  Flugmaschine.     Berlin,  Braunsbeck  &  Gutenberg,  1909.     327  p. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  605 

light  and  tethered  plane  must  have  been  discovered  again  and  again. 
From  the  kite  festivals  of  China  and  Japan  with  their  sportive  and 
even  religious  symbolism  to  the  compound  kite  systems  that  lift  men 
hundreds  of  feet,  and  photographic  and  other  scientific  apparatus 
miles  into  the  air  and  bring  us  knowledge  of  topography  below  and 
aerial  conditions  above,  is  a  long  wonder  tale  of  mingled  play  and 
scientific  interest  combined  in  unique,  if  not  ideal,  pedagogic  pro- 
portions. Then  comes  the  chapter  of  balloons,  from  those  of  toy 
dimensions  up  to  the  great  crafts  that  compete  under  the  direction 
of  clubs.  More  recently  came  the  era  of  dirigibles  culminating  in 
the  airship  of  the  Zeppelin  type,  almost  as  long  as  a  man-of-war 
and  carrying  15  or  20  persons  with  half  a  ton  or  more  of  ma- 
chinery and  accouterments,  sailing  in  the  teeth  of  a  strong  wind 
and  already  in  Munich  making  regular  trips  with  an  established  fare 
for  passengers.  The  aeroplane  of  the  Wright-Paulhan  fashion  has  its 
own  chapter.  All  this  has  involved  many  new  legal  questions,  not 
only  as  to  patents,  but  as  to  the  rights  of  property  owners  to  the  air 
above  their  land,  the  damage  done  by  dropping  ballast  and  garbage, 
landing  in  fields,  the  danger  of  collision,  rights  of  way,  etc.  There 
are  almost  unlimited  military  possibilities  involved :  by  their  aid 
soldiers  can  attain  knowledge  of  the  enemy's  forts'  and  positions  and 
may  be  able  to  drop  bombs  on  ships  and  cities  from  heights  beyond 
rifle  range,  new  vertical  guns  are  invented  and  serpentine  courses 
laid  down  most  likely  to  avoid  their  aim ;  curiously,  too,  not  a  few 
practical  principles  entirely  unknown  before  have  been  accidentally 
discovered,  and  there  is  already  a  short  but  pathetic  list  of  martyrs 
who  have  lost  their  lives  in  experimentation,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
saddened,  if  not  shortened,  career  of  Langley,  who,  despite  the  news- 
paper ridicule  of  his  failures,  contributed  more  knowledge  and  did 
more  to  give  these  problems  scientific  standing  than  any  other. 
Several  eminent  authorities  had  deliberately  declared,  too,  that 
various  achievements  now  actually  accomplished  would  be  impossible. 
Now  the  point  to  which  I  invite  the  attention  of  every  reader 
and  challenge  every  critic  is  this :  while  we  have  been  quick  to 
discern  the  commercial  possibilities  of  financial  gain  and  have  al- 


A.  Hildebrandt:  Die  Luftschiffahrt.  Munich,  Oldenbourg,  1907.  426  p.  George 
Wellner:  Die  Flugmaschinen.  Vienna,  Hartleben,  1910.  152  p.  W.  deFon- 
vielle:  Histoire  de  la  Navigation  A^rienne.  Paris,  Hachette,  1907.  270  p.  H. 
Delacombe:  The  Boys'  Book  of  Airships.  N.  Y.,  Stokes,  igog.  244  p.  R.  P. 
Heame:  Airships  in  Peace  and  War.  N.  Y.,  Lane,  igio.  324  p.  A.  Lawrence 
Rotch:  The  Conquest  of  the  Air.  N.  Y.,  Moffat,  Yard,  1909.  192  p.  A.  Hilde- 
brandt: Airships  Past  and  Present.  London,  Constable,  1908.  364  p.  Alphonse 
Berget:  The  Conquest  of  the  ,Mr.  N.  Y.,  Putnam,  1909.  295  p.  Hiram  S. 
Maxim:  Artificial  and  Natural  Flight.  London,  Whittakcr,  1908.  166  p.  Victor 
Lougheed:  Vehicles  of  the  Air.  Ix)ndon.  Unwin,  1910.  479  p.  A.  Haenig: 
Ballon- und  Flugmotoren.  Rostock  i.  M.,  Volckmann,  1910.  196  p.  Neumann: 
Die  ictemationalcn  Luftschiflc,  1910.     Oldenbourg  i.  (it..  Stalling,  1910.    102  p. 


6o6  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ready  several  rival  stock  companies,  and  while  every  newspaper  in 
the  land  has  exploited  to  the  uttermost  every  sensational  achievement 
and  possibility  in  all  the  stages  of  this  remarkable  development,  not 
one  of  all  our  pedagogues  has  made  any  effort  worthy  the  name 
to  utilize  the  great,  new,  manifold,  educational  resource  here  opened. 
The  appeal  to  youthful  interest  is  intense,  and  the  latter  could  absorb 
a  whole  sheaf  of  principles  of  physics  in  the  easiest,  simplest,  and 
most  effective  way.  From  the  mechanics  of  the  air  to  the  gasoline 
engine  which  made  dirigibles  possible,  there  is  a  culture-history  value 
for  developing  intellect  and  also  for  creating  industrial  zests  and 
even  activities.  Magazine  writers  have  exploited  phases  of  the 
topics  here  involved  of  which  a  few  libraries  have  made  convenient 
lists,  and  a  few  alert  pedagogues  here  and  there  have  tried  to  turn 
on  the  high-pressure  power  of  interest  to  enrich  the  programme. 
Very  few  English  writers  have  deemed  it  worth  while,  and  no 
teacher  has  been  possessed  by  the  idea  that  boys  have  a  right  to 
have  this  matter  sifted,  adapted,  and  illustrated.  In  Germany  this 
need  has  been  recognized  and  there  are  a  number  of  interesting 
handbooks  written  by  those  who  have  realized  that  this  new  develop- 
ment involves  new  duties  to  the  young;  but  none  of  these  have  yet 
been  translated.  If  they  only  had  a  little  more  consciousness  of 
their  own  real  needs  in  this  respect,  boys  would  organize  a  strike 
or  formulate  and  present  to  the  teaching  body  a  bill  of  rights  de- 
manding that  they  no  longer  be  kept  in  ignorance  or  left  to  snap 
up  only  the  scattered  crumbs  of  information  on  a  subject  in  which  is 
focused  now  so  much  interest  on  the  part  of  business  men,  capitalists, 
lawyers,  physicists,  meteorologists,  and  mechanics.  As  it  is,  most 
of  the  wealth  of  boy  interest  in  this  contemporary  field  is  allowed 
to  go  to  waste  for  pedagogy,  and  the  psychological  opportunity  for 
mental  stimulus  and  fertilization  is  lost.  Boys  might  not  unjustly 
almost  imitate  the  spirit  of  the  barons  of  Runnymede  and  demand 
knowledge,  as  they  did  rights,  withheld  from  them.  That  no  one 
has  it  in  his  heart  to  tell  the  boys,  to  proclaim  the  glad  tidings  from 
the  frontier,  to  animate  them  and  to  find  his  reward  in  the  eager 
attention  and  intellectual  uplift  of  it  all  to  them,  that  no  teacher 
burns  to  impart  it  or  sees  its  culture  value,  is  only  another  expression 
of  the  sad  fact  that  we  have  lost  contact  with  the  nature  and  do  not 
serve,  or  even  see,  the  needs  of  the  young. 

Another  excellent  object,  that  the  experimentalists  in  industrial 
education  try  out,  is  the  making  of  puppet  theaters.  Teachers  have 
lost  sight  of  the  possibilities  here  which  a  century  ago  loomed  so 
big  in  Continental  Europe,  especially  in  Germany.  The  wood,  paste- 
board, cloth,  thread  work,  and  perhaps  some  of  the  figurines  could 
be  made;  and  this  prelude  would  involve  literary  knowledge  while 
the  manual  skill  needful  to  operate  these  shows  would  have  a  place. 
The  revival  of  this  lost  art  would  need  a  little  fostering  care  at 
first,  but  would  be  well  worth  trying,  here  and  there  at  least,  as  an 
annex  to  supplement  industrial  training.     If  a  suitable  interest  could 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  607 

be  aroused,  it  would  be  a  rare  and  precious  combination  of  hand 
work  and  literary,  historical,  and  art  interest  in  excellent  pedagogic 
proportions.  The  life  of  Goethe  shows  its  influence  on  certain  supe- 
rior types  of  juvenile  mind,  while  the  famous  Munich  puppet  show, 
which  still  survives,  shows  the  charm  of  simplified  drama  for  chil- 
dren, who  might  participate  in  as  well  as  see  productions. 

Another  strong  boy  interest  is  that  in  firearms.  This  is  intense 
and  often  leads  lads  to  obtain  pistols  surreptitiously,  to  use  them 
both  as  toys  and  in  earnest.  The  owning  and  perhaps  use  of  a 
"  gun  "  at  the  age  when  this  interest  culminates,  the  thrilling  mo- 
ment in  melodrama  when,  perhaps  at  the  hands  of  a  feeble  girl  or  an 
avenger,  the  villain  is  foiled,  makes  a  dramatic  situation  that  was 
impossible  before.  It  gives  the  weakest,  smallest,  and  fewest  power 
against  the  strong  and  the  many,  and  makes  virtue  and  vice,  as  the 
case  may  be,  triumphant.  We  need,  too,  gun  books  on  pedagogic 
principles  to  intellectualize  and  sublimate  this  now  wasted  and  de- 
graded instinct.  It  should  tell  in  clear  and  simple  language  and  with 
copious  illustrations  the  story  from  the  invention  of  gunpowder  to 
Krupp,  describe  all  the  stages,  the  manifold  tests,  the  experiments, 
the  manufacture,  the  improvements  in  rifles,  the  methods  of  studying 
the  force  and  range  of  projectiles,  their  use  and  abuse  in  war  and 
peace,  with  subtle  moral  suggestions  about  personal  combat,  honor, 
the  slaughter  of  game,  etc.,  interest  in  target  shooting,  records, 
modes  of  warfare,  great  battles,  innumerable  hints  as  to  processes, 
and  the  business  methods  involved — all  this  might  be  set  forth  in  a 
way  to  give  contact  at  every  point  with  the  natural  fascination  boys 
have  in  man's  recently  acquired  power  of  hurling  missiles  of  death 
with  accuracy  at  great  distances.  This  should  be  perhaps  introduced 
by  an  anthropological  chapter  on  bows  and  arrows,  and  even  spears 
and  javelins  hurled  by  arm  power,  modern  bow-shotting  clubs,  etc. 
Such  a  book  could  be  constructed  that  would  do  very  much  to  lay 
betimes  in  the  youthful  soul  the  foundations  on  which  the  aims  of 
all  peace  and  arbitration  movements  might  be  advanced.  If  peda- 
gogy were  a  real  muse  to-day  this  would  be  a  most  acceptable 
offering  to  lay  upon  her  shrine.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  how,  rightly 
presented,  this  might  make  even  a  gang  leader  sit  up  and  take 
notice,  and  become  almost  a  veritable  Bible  among  the  hankies.  In- 
stead of  this,  we  have  here  again  a  great  and  natural  pedagogic 
power  going  to  waste  or  worse,  because  we  are  not  in  earnest  in  the 
matter  of  doing  our  best  with  and  for  the  young.  Our  educational 
instincts  are  suffering  atrophy,  our  sense  of  responsibility  is  conven- 
tionalized and  rutty,  and  what  might  be  an  intellectual  spur  is  ig- 
nored and  the  motivation  may  in  extreme  cases  even  take  a  crim- 
inaloid  form. 

What  has  been  said  above,  e.  g.,  about  aerial  navigation  for  boys 
might  be  said  of  many  other  things.  In  many  cases  only  part  of 
the  toy  or  apparatus  could  be.  or  would  need  to  be.  made  in  order 
to  get  its  educational  value.     Tops  open  the  secret  to  some  of  the 


6o8  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

profoundest  problems  of  nature,  and  an  eminent  physicist  friend 
insists  that  boys  could  easily  make  a  Maxwell  top  and  could  record 
some  of  its  wonderful  gyrations,  and  that  nothing  would  lead  so 
strongly  and  directly  from  sense  to  reason.  A  graded  course  in  tops 
alone  would  incite  curiosity  in  everything  that  spins  or  rotates  and 
would  contribute  to  build  apperception  organs  for  vortexes,  atoms, 
and  stellar  systems,  later.  The  stimulus  here  would  be  very  great. 
Among  German  toys  are  steam  engines  that  both  go  and  reverse; 
and  all  this  leads  over  by  insensible  gradations  to  illustrative  ap- 
paratus; for  natural  history,  bugs  that  creep,  birds  that  fly,  monkeys 
that  cHmb,  soldiers  that  march,  thrust,  shoot;  boats  with  wheels  and 
rudders,  flowers  opening  to  the  bee  and  springing  like  a  Venus's  fly 
trap.  On  processes  like  these,  too,  the  basal  principles  of  mechanics, 
acoustics,  optics,  magnetism,  and  all  the  rest,  of  which  algebraic 
formulae  are  the  scientific  language,  could  be  illustrated.  The  fol- 
lowing apparatus  in  physics  has  been  made  in  schools  as  a  propadeu- 
tic  to  industrial  training:  color  discs,  vibratory  rods  and  plates, 
siphon,  sucker,  spyglass,  Magdeburg  hemispheres,  vernier,  hour  glass, 
balance,  pendulum,  thermometer,  barometer,  monochord,  apparatus  to 
show  expansion,  evaporation  and  certain  hydraulic  laws,  chark  or 
fire  drill,  the  pith-ball  apparatus,  magnets,  electric  keys,  telegraphs, 
various  optical  illusions.  R.  S.  Baker  ^  has  a  very  pedagogic  intro- 
duction to  popular  science.  First  there  is  a  voyage  on  the  sea 
bottom  in  a  submarine  boat,  the  Argonaut,  which  can  rise  or  sink, 
run  on  the  bottom  on  wheels,  has  openings  for  divers,  etc.  The 
second  chapter  describes  liquid  air,  with  all  the  steps  from  Pictet 
in  1879  on  to  liquid  nitrogen  by  Dewar,  and  just  how  Tripler  does 
it,  and  how  it  behaves.  Then  comes  the  story  of  Marconi,  his  suc- 
cesses and  difficulties  to  date.  Motor  vehicles.  X-ray  photography, 
and  the  phonograph,  with  plenty  of  personal  storiology,  complete 
the  volume.  D.  C.  Beard  ^  follows  the  seasons  for  his  amusements ; 
spring  is  for  kites,  fishing,  aquaria,  flower  and  house  gardens;  sum- 
mer, for  knots,  hitches,  loops,  water  telescopes,  tangles,  trawls, 
boats  and  rigging,  soap  bubbles,  camping,  bird  keeping;  autumn,  for 
traps,  dogs,  taxidermy,  camera,  drawing,  photography;  winter,  for 
snowballs,  houses,  sleds,  sleighs,  ice  boats,  snowshoes,  skates, 
phonographs,  puppets,  kaleidoscopes,  fantastiscopes,  costumes,  etc., 
all  with  plenty  of  parts  and  things  to  do  and  make  to  train  the  hand, 
Cassell's  book '  is  copiously  illustrated  with  diagrams  for  cricket, 
football,  poio,  tennis,  golf,  baseball,  aid  to  the  injured,  swimming, 
boxing,  fencing,  hoop,  marbles,  archery,  wrestling,  rowing,  bowling, 
croquet,  quoits,  billiards,  chess,  backgammon,  checkers,  experiments 
with  heat,  light,  sound,  in  chemistry,  mechanics,  geological  recrea- 

^  The  Boys'  Book  of  Inventions.     New  York,  Doubleday,  1899.    354  p.    See 
also  his  Boys'  Second  Book  of  Inventions.     N.  Y.,  McClure,  1903. 

2  What  to  do  and  How  to  do  it.     N.  Y.,  Scribner,  1882.     391  p. 

3  Book  of  Sports  and  Pastimes.     N.  Y.,  Cassell,  1904.     973  p. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  609 

tions,  wood  and  metal  work,  shipbuilding,  pigeons,  rabbits,  squirrels, 
silkworms,  parlor  games,  puzzles,  tricks,  conjuring,  charades,  acros- 
tics, with  plenty  of  things  to  do  and  make,  but  with  this  element 
subordinated  to  use.  R.  B.  Routledge  ^  has  compiled  two  volumes 
of  great  pedagogic  interest,  the  first  dealing  with  the  steam  engine 
and  its  use,  iron  tools,  railways,  workshops,  firearms,  Suez  Canal, 
sand,  iron  bridges,  printing  press,  pneumatic  dispatch,  hydraulic 
power,  spectroscope,  the  eye,  lighthouses,  new  metals,  anaesthetics, 
explosive  gas,  and  finally  the  greatest  discovery  of  the  age,  "  Joules's 
foot-pound,"  with  occasional  portraits  and  biographies  interspersed. 
His  later  book '  describes  the  grounds  and  environments  of  an  ideal 
school  at  Overton  Lodge,  where  the  principal  develops  a  scheme 
of  teaching  science  by  pastimes,  discussing  the  steps  of  his  plan  with 
the  vicar.  The  third  chapter  is  more  serious,  on  magnetics,  simpli- 
fied theories  of  magnetism;  then  come  pastimes  about  magic  mir- 
rors, fairy  fountains,  the  camera  obscura,  the  magic  lantern,  etc. 
Then  come  the  thaumotrope,  zoetrope,  spectrum,  color  tops,  and 
color  blindness  and  the  blind,  signboards,  symbols,  riddles,  hearing 
through  the  teeth,  whispering  galleries,  sea  shells,  speaking  tubes, 
music  boxes,  complex  vibrations,  ancient  music,  combs,  oscillations, 
force,  inertia,  and  matter,  first  law  of  motion,  impact,  billiard  play- 
ing, stable  and  unstable  equilibrium,  balancing,  stilts,  the  ball  run- 
ning up  an  incline,  waterfalls  and  wheels,  trip  hammers,  kinetic 
energy,  the  swing,  Galileo  at  Pisa,  absolute  time,  standard  time, 
centrifugal  force,  tension,  capillarity,  vacuum,  compressed  air, 
popguns,  bellows,  pump,  valve,  barometer,  battledore  and  shuttle- 
cock, rockets,  and  tumbling  puppets.  T.  A.  L.  Du  Moncel  *  describes 
various  forms  of  musical  and  speaking  telephones,  explains  the  fun- 
damental principles  and  arrangements  of  the  Bell  type  of  eight-  or 
ten-battery  telephones,  the  Bell  patents,  with  experiments,  the 
microphone  with  its  attachments,  uses,  stations,  call  bells,  alarms, 
etc.  The  book  is  a  model  of  clear  and  concise  statement,  although 
not  up  to  date.  J.  H.  Pepper*  explains  the  use  of  much  chemical 
and  physical  apparatus  required  for  simple  experiments  concerning 
impenetrability,  centrifugal  force,  gravity,  cohesion,  crystallization, 
optics,  heat,  etc.  The  illustrations  are  particularly  well  chosen, 
although  the  occasional  appeals  to  humor  are  less  successful.  A 
very  interesting  relay  to  all  this  is  found  in  the  literature  of  magic, 

'  Discoveries  and  Inventions  of  the  Nineteenth  Century.  N.  Y.,  Routledge, 
1898.  767  p.  Sec  also  G.  B.  Smith:  How  to  Succeed  as  an  Inventor.  Phila., 
Inventors  and  Investors  Corporation,  11 14  Chestnut  St.,  iqoq.  76  p.  G.  C. 
Marks:  Inventions,  Patents,  and  Designs.  N.  Y.,  Van  Nostrand,  1909.  116  p. 
George  lies:  Inventors  at  Work.     N.  Y.,  Doublcday,  iqo6.     50.^  p. 

*  Science  in  Sport  made  Philosophy  in  Kamest.     London.  1877. 

*  The  Telephone,  the  Microphone,  and  the  Phonograph.  London,  1879. 
272  p.     70  illustrations. 

« The  Boys'  Play  Book  of  Science.     Lend.,  Routledge,  1881.     506  p. 
40 


6io  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

now  quite  voluminous.  The  best  of  these  books,  like  those  of  Albert 
A.  Hopkins  ^  and  Professor  Hoffmann,^  abound,  like  the  toy  books, 
in  scores  and  hundreds  of  illustrations  of  things  that  easily  could  be 
made  into  a  manual  training  department  at  every  grade,  from  lowest 
to  highest,  and  which  from  the  beginning  would  illustrate  scientific 
principles  and  give  all  the  zest  that  the  natural  boy  feels  in  the 
manipulations  of  the  superior  knowledge  that  thaumaturgy  supplies. 
Oliver  Lodge '  gives  a  brief  story  of  the  lives  and  achievements  of 
Copernicus,  Tycho-Brahe,  Keppler,  Galileo,  Descartes,  Newton, 
Broehme,  and  Bradley,  Lagrange,  Laplace,  Herschel,  Bessel,  with 
additional  talks  on  the  discovery  of  Neptune,  comets  and  meteors, 
and  tides  and  planetary  evolution.  The  biographical  portion  of  each 
section  treating  of  different  writers  is  brief  but  serves  as  a  stimu- 
lating introduction  to  the  processes  and  accounts  of  their  scientific 
achievements  which  follow.  Photography  has  pedagogic  features, 
and  among  the  most  interesting  institutions  I  have  ever  seen  is  that 
of  the  Imperial  School  of  Photography  with  its  magnificent  building 
in  Vienna,  where  all  the  pwocesses  of  reproduction,  lithography, 
lantern  slides,  and  scientific  demonstrations  are  laid  own.  Here 
we  have  popular  books  by  D.  L.  Elmendorf,*  A.  E.  Dolbear,"  Lewis 

^  Magic  Stage  Illusions  and  Scientific  Diversions,  including  Trick  Photography. 
N.  Y.,  Munn,  1897.     556  p. 

*  Modem  Magic.     Lond.,  Routledge,  1886.     511  p. 

*  Pioneers  of  Science.  N.  Y.,  Macmillan,  1904.  404  p.  See  also  G.  E.  John- 
son: Education  by  Plays  and  Games.  Boston,  Ginn,  1907.  234  p.  M.  R. 
Hofer:  Popular  Folk  Games  and  Dances  for  Playground,  Vacation  School  and 
Schoolroom  Use.  Chic,  Flanagan,  1907.  56  p.  D.  C.  Beard,  Boy  Pioneers. 
N.  Y.,  Scribner,  1909.  329  p.  Mrs.  F.  H.  Kirk:  Old  English  Games  and  Physical 
Exercises.  N.  Y.,  Longmans,  1906.  51  p.  F.  Wehman:  Wehman  Brothers' 
New  Books  of  150  Parlor  Tricks  and  Games;  homemade  apparatus.  N.  Y., 
Wehman,  1905.  106  p.  J.  D.  Champlin:  Young  Folks'  Cyclopaedia  of  Games 
and  Sports.  N.  Y.,  Holt,  1899.  784  p.  J.  H.  Bancroft:  Games  for  the  Play- 
ground, Home,  School,  and  Gymnasium.  N.  Y.,  Macmillan,  1909.  456  p.  W. 
Kirsch:  Scientific  Magical  Experiments.  Newark,  N.  J.  W.  Krisch,  1910.  8  p. 
H.  J.  Burlingame:  Hermann  the  Great;  the  famous  magician's  wonderful  tricks. 
Chic,  Laird,  1905.  298  p.  B.  R.  Parsons:  Plays  and  Games  for  Indoors  and 
Out.  N.  Y.,  Barnes,  1909.  215  p.  Games  Book  for  Boys  and  Girls.  N.  Y., 
Dutton,  1906.  415  p.  D.  F.  Canfield  (and  others):  What  Shall  We  Do  Now? 
500  Games  and  Pastimes.  N.  Y.,  Stokes,  1907.  419  p.  M.  E.  Barse:  Games 
for  all  Occasions.  Brewer,  Barse  &  Co.,  1909.  208  p.  C.  Wells:  Pleasant  Day 
Diversions.  N.  Y.,  Moffat,  1909.  282  p.  W.  H. 'J-  Shaw:  New  Ideas  in  Magic 
Illusions,  Spiritualistic  Effects,  etc.  St.  Louis,  W.  H.  J.  Shaw,  1902.  93  p.  H- 
R.  Evans :  Old  and  New  Magic  Chic,  Open  Court,  1909.  450  p.  W.  Goldston: 
Tricks  and  Illusions  for  Amateur  and  Professional  Conjurers.  N.  Y.,  Dutton, 
1909.     250  p. 

*  Lantern  Slides;  How  to  Make  and  Color  Them.  A  Practical  Pocket  Book  of 
Photography.     1900. 

*The  Art  of  Projecting.     Boston,  Lee,  1892.     178  p. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  6ii 

Wright,'  Ernst  Vogel,'  and  others.  There  are  very  many  manuals 
here  treating  of  various  types  of  apparatus,  the  dark  room,  negatives, 
gelatin  and  dry  plates  and  wet,  collodion,  emulsions,  enlarged  and 
reduced  negatives,  recovery  of  the  silver  residues,  various  processes 
of  printing,  toning,  copying,  and  directions  how  to  make  a  very 
simple  practical  laboratory.  The  point  is  that  the  mind  of  active 
boys  ought  to  be  exposed  to  books  of  this  kind,  among  which  each 
would  be  sure  to  find  something  ravishing  and  mind  kindling. 
Manual  construction  of  the  whole  or  of  parts,  now  large,  now  small, 
could  readily  be  so  arranged  as  to  give  intellectual  interest  its  due 
prominence,  and  to  make  it  the  mainspring  for  inciting  to  manipula- 
tion. If  the  books  which  now  exist  were  used  as  they  should  be, 
this  would  incite  to  the  writing  of  the  many  more  and  better  than 
now  exist  that  ought  to  be  and  would  be  composed.  And  all  this 
may  serve  to  illustrate  the  new  type  of  curriculum  which  I  urge 
ought  to  be  constructed  as  a  link  that  is  missing  between  the  school 
and  shop  which  the  present  mechanical  manual  training  courses, 
wooden  in  their  intelligence  and  iron 'in  their  inflexibility,  do  not 
bridge. 

All  this  would  show  natural  aptitudes  and  help  vocational 
bureaus  like  that  established  in  1908  in  Boston,  or  other 
agencies  to  test  and  advise  youth,  which  should  exist  in  every 
city.  Some  schools  have  assistants  to  help  their  graduates 
in  this  way.  O.  H,  Woolley,  Passaic,  N.  J.,  has  representa- 
tives of  the  professions  and  industries  of  the  city  give  talks 
before  the  high  school  as  to  their  business  and  the  opportuni- 
ties—one on  its  dark  and  one  on  its  bright  side — laying  stress 
on  the  peculiar  natural  and  educational  qualifications  neces- 
sary for  success  in  each.  Connected  with  some  trade  schools 
for  girls  are  assistants  to  recommend  graduates  for  positions 
they  can  fill  or  to  investigate  factories  and  shops  to  see  if  they 
are  fit.  Tiie  late  Dr.  Frank  Parsons^  developed  questionnaires 
that  became  for  older  youth  rather  highly  elaborated,  which 
each  applicant  had  to  fill  out  as  a  basis  for  the  personal  ad- 
vice of  an  expert.  The  idea  was  to  size  up  each  lad  with 
regard  to  his  physical,  mental,  and  moral  qualities  needful 
for  success.      The   Y.   M.   C.   A.   in   various   places   has   at- 

'  Optical  Projection;  A  Treatise  on  the  Use  of  the  Lantern.     London,  Long- 
mans, 1901.     438  p. 

*  Practical   Pocket  Book  of  Photography.     Tr.  and  ed.   by  Y..  C.  Conrad. 
Macmillan,  1903.     323  p. 

*  ChoosinR  a  Vocation.     Boston,  Houghton,  Mifflin  Co.,  1009.     165  p. 


6i2  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

tempted  some  of  this  work,  which  is  now  being  begun  in  Ger- 
many.^ That  vastly  more  could,  should,  and  will  be  done 
along  these  lines  now  seems  certain.  Courses  for  such  coun- 
selors have  already  been  proposed,  and  in  a  few  instances 
given  in  outline.  Such  an  adviser  needs  to  have  two  very 
diverse  kinds  of  knowledge :  first,  a  large  endowment  of 
native  tact  and  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  the  special 
psychology  of  which  this  is  the  best  foundation,  along  with 
certain  apparatus  for  making  tests  scientific;  and,  second,  he 
needs  a  wide  practical  knowledge  of  the  leading  branches  of 
industry.  No  one  can  doubt  that  misfits  now  cause  great 
waste  and  many  pathetic  failures  on  the  part  of  men  who, 
if  in  the  industries  they  were  best  fitted  for,  would  achieve 
success.  Inherited  tendencies  toward  diseases  should  bar 
those  who  have  them  from  certain  industries.  Every  quality 
is  a  factor  in  the  inventories  needed,  such  as  size,  good  looks, 
manner,  dress,  habits,  tastes,  reading,  experience,  disposition, 
resources,  residential  and  family  ties,  voice,  accuracy  of 
senses,  memory,  sympathy,  association,  ambition,  readiness  to 
adapt,  rapidity  of  thought  and  action,  power  to  work  with 
others,  regularity,  cordiality,  self-reliance,  tolerance,  foresight, 
temper,  poise,  democratic  disposition,  ability  to  persuade, 
trustfulness — all  these  and  many  more  are  assets,  and  upon 
self-analysis,  aided  by  the  investigations  of  the  adviser,  wast- 
age may  often  be  avoided  and  occasionally  great  success  in- 
sured. No  college  elective  system  has  presented  so  many  op- 
tions as  do  vocations  now  for  people  far  younger  than  college 
students.  We  now  treat  subnormal  children  far  better  when 
we  subject  them  to  scores  and  sometimes  hundreds  of  tests 
as  a  basis  for  prescribing  their  hygiene,  pedagogics,  regimen, 
instruction  or  calling.  Here  is  where  accumulated  data  from 
the  study  of  children  and  adolescents  might  be  made  of  the 
greatest  practical  service.  Vast  numbers  of  young  men  and 
women  have  consulted  phrenologists  and  perhaps  palmists, 
astrologers,  spiritual  mediums,  etc.,  to  get  tips  on  how  they 
should  invest  the  most  precious  capital  of  their  lives ;  although 
for  most  of  them  chance,  accident,  local  environment,  and  the 
example  of  cronies  determine.     An  office  where  crude  human 

*  L.  Mittenzwey:  Der  Benifswahl.     Leipzig,  Diior,  19 lo.     217  p. 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  613 

material  could  be  assayed  is  surely  now  a  desideratum.  The 
demands  of  many  business  concerns  are  of  late  more  and  more 
frequently  scheduled  with  great  detail,  and  examinations  for 
fitness  are  often  elaborate  and  extend  far  outside  those  quali- 
ties that  education  can  cultivate.  Sometimes  ambitions  and 
inclinations  are  developed  in  directions  in  which  other  traits 
would  make  great  success  impossible ;  while  often  the  realiza- 
tion of  this  fact,  if  it  comes  betimes,  will  supply  the  most  po- 
tent of  all  incentives  for  overcoming  the  handicap.  The  field 
for  this  applied  psycho-physiology  is  wide,  and,  when  the  su- 
preme value  of  the  human  factor  is  fully  realized,  there  can 
be  no  shadow  of  doubt  that  every  boy  and  girl  will  be  pro- 
vided with  access  to  such  an  expert,  a  single  session  with 
whom  has  already  in  many  instances  changed  the  entire  cur- 
rent of  lives  from  failure  to  success.  Vocational  proclivities 
and  abilities  are  often  apparent  some  years  before  puberty, 
although  at  the  dawn  of  adolescence  they  become  very  mani- 
fest. The  advantages  of  such  psycho-industrial  experts  would 
be  great  not  only  to  the  young  but  to  those  who  employ  them ; 
and  a  certificate  of  aptness  with  more  or  less  detail  will  no 
doubt  ere  long  supplement  the  ordinary  testimonials  of  gen- 
eral character.  The  demands  of  employers,  if  collected  and 
systematized  here,  would  be  a  great  spur  to  boys  ambitious 
of  entering  specific  vocations:  and  these,  concisely  and  au- 
thoritatively put  together,  would  be  a  boon  to  our  entire  edu- 
cational system. 

History  shows  an  almost  invincible  tendency  of  peda- 
gogues to  reduce  everything  introduced  into  the  school  to 
scholastic  hypermethodic  form,  and  to  disinfect  it  of  every 
taint  of  utilitarianism  for  the  sake  of  culture  values.  The 
story  of  the  kindergarten,  drawing,  physical  culture,  nature 
study,  and  even  science,  shows  this.  Indeed,  stenography, 
dressmaking,  embroidery,  bookkeeping,  and  all  the  rest  have 
been  challenged  on  the  one  hand  for  lacking,  and  advocated 
on  the  other  for  having  culture  value,  just  as  sloyd  and 
manual  training  have  l^een  purged  of  utility  to  become  lil^eral 
and  been  made  a  drill  in  mere  manual  dexterity.  This  horror 
of  remunerativeness  leads  M.  R.  Iliggins  to  say.  "  Our  trade 
school  is  generally  a  .school  attachtnent  while  it  should  be  a 
shop  with  a  sc1uk)1  attachment."     Many  recent  psychological 


6i4  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

studies  throw  grave  doubt  upon  the  whole  gymnastic  theory 
of  education,  so  that  it  is  at  any  rate  now  an  open  question 
whether  the  training  of  one  activity  strengthens  another,  or 
whether  any  study  can  give  general  power,  ability,  or  formal 
discipline  that  helps  others.  Once  it  was  thought  that  the 
study  of  logic  and  the  categories,  then  classics  and  mathe- 
matics, gave  unique  power  that,  once  acquired,  could  be  turned 
into  almost  any  field.  This  was  aided  by  the  view  that  the 
mind  was  not  divided  into  faculties  but  was  unitary.  It  is 
demonstrated  that  even  memory  training  in  one  field  gives 
little  mnemonic  power  in  others,  although  Angel,  Pillsbury, 
and  Judd  ^  think  the  practice  of  one  function  influences  an- 
other, and  that  activities  are  so  interrelated  that  we  must 
assume  some  identity  of  common  elements.  In  point  of  fact, 
we  psychologists  must  make  the  mortifying  confession  that 
we  know  almost  nothing  of  pure  culture  values,  either  what 
they  are  or  how  to  acquire  them.  But  we  do  know  that  to 
succeed  an  individual  must  put  his  whole  soul  into  his  work, 
and  that  the  study  of  even  Greek,  Latin,  and  logic  in  a  half- 
hearted way  is  demoralizing  and  soporific.  We  know,  too, 
that  if  most  men  do  not  find  culture  value  in  their  own  voca- 
tion they  will  never  find  it.  Anything  is  cultural  that  arouses 
the  ambition  of  young  people  to  do  their  best ;  hence,  whether 
a  topic  is  cultural  or  practical  depends  wholly  upon  the  point 
of  view  and  the  spirit.  Education  is  always  only  a  means 
to  an  end;  and  to  teach,  to  heal,  to  preach,  to  plead,  to  pre- 
scribe, to  investigate,  is  industrial  training.  To  put  thought 
into  work  is  to  idealize  existence.  Brereton  defines  culture 
as  "  the  sum  total  of  the  sociological  results  of  human  en- 
deavor in  mechanical,  mental,  and  moral  fields."  C.  B.  Gibson 
shows  how  shop  work  intensifies  interest  in  what  have  been 
thought  to  be  the  purely  cultural  fields,  and  Carroll  D.  Wright 
insisted  that  industrial  training  was  the  best  means  of  culti- 
vating truthfulness,  integrity,  and  social  solidarity,  for  a  man 
without  a  vocation  is  not  a  real  member  of  the  community. 
We  know  that  industry  is  an  immense  stimulus  to  the  fee- 
ble-minded,  and  there  is  a  great  convergence   of  testimony 


*  A.  Meiklejohn:  Is  Mental  Training  a  Myth?    Educational  Review,  1909. 
Vol.  37,  pp.  1 26-141.     See  especially  p.  130. 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  615 

that  industrial  schools  show  a  high  grade  of  intellectual  work 
and  stimulate  it.  Professor  P.  H.  Hanus  deplores  the  timid- 
ity and  often  disparagement  of  vocational  things  by  educators, 
who,  he  says,  have  sometimes  "  even  measured  their  own 
usefulness  by  the  extent  to  which  they  keep  the  distinctly  use- 
ful out  of  their  work,"  and  where  they  have  undertaken  to 
defend  even  sewing  and  cooking  have  done  so  because  of 
their  psychological  worth  instead  of  for  their  great  practical- 
ity. Thus,  he  adds  in  substance,  the  school  fails  to  reach  most 
of  our  youth  during  the  most  critical  period  of  adolescence, 
so  that  they  do  not  have  "  all  the  conveniences  for  thinking." 
Where  the  vocational  ideal  has  become  effective,  teachers  seek 
to  make  practical  topics  into  "  a  moral  setting-up  drill  for  the 
intellect."  Briggs  shows  that  pupils  are  prone  to  regard  the 
school  as  a  place  of  "  delightful  irresponsibility  where  a  youth 
may  disport  himself  before  he  is  condemned  to  hard  labor." 
Thus  if  the  school  can  in  any  sense  be  called  a  miniature 
world,  which  it  cannot,  it  is  an  unreal  one.  A  New  York 
teacher  writes  that  she  really  ceased  teaching  years  ago,  and 
has  since  been  rrn^^ing  a  machine,  and  since  she  has  some- 
times felt  "  that  school-teaching  may  be  characterized  as  Gen- 
eral Sherman  described  war."  It,  too,  is  paved  with  good 
intentions,  as  well  as  with  fair  syllabi.  Another  says  that 
teachers  know  the  wheel  of  Ixion,  the  banquet  of  Tantalus, 
Sisyphus's  stone,  and  how  Cataline  abuses  our  patience,  that 
they  feel  the  vanity  and  limbo  nature  of  what  they  teach. 
Flexner  finds  that  college  students  lack  "  spontaneity  and  dis- 
interested intellectual  activity,"  and  says  they  emerge  "  flighty, 
superficial,  and  immature,"  and  that  "  the  very  qualities  that 
seem  to  secure  the  degree  R.A.  would  secure  a  man's  dismissal 
from  any  other  business  whatever."  Woodrow  Wilson  de- 
clares that  he  has  come  to  feel  that  he  was  l>ending  all  his  ener- 
gies to  do  a  thing  that  could  not  be  done,  as  if  he  were  work- 
ing in  a  vacuum  with  no  transmitting  medium.  And  Barrett 
Wendell  (The  Prii'ileged  Classes  of  America)  says:  "  Many 
bachelors  of  arts  .  .  .  are  virtually  undercducatod."  "  The 
younger  generation  seem  hardly  educated  at  all."  "  Tradi- 
tional methods  of  education  have  l)een  tried  and  found  want- 
ing." l''or  nujst  men  work  is  a  struggle  for  the  market,  and 
pupils  need  to  be  kept  in  vital  touch  with  some  kind  of  a  mar- 


6i6  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ket  idea  in  order  to  feel  that  they  are  doing  something  worth 
while.  To  be  cultivated  we  must  be  industrious.  No  one 
can  work  well  for  culture  alone,  but  for  some  end  or  product. 
It  was  only  when  Latin  ceased  to  have  any  value  in  the  mar- 
ket that  it  set  up  as  cultural,  and  here  began  its  decadence. 
Our  present  system  was  meant  for  an  earlier,  simpler  stage 
of  progress.  Its  remoteness  from  practicality  is  vitally  con- 
nected with  such  criticisms  as  those  of  Edward  Everett  Hale, 
who  says :  "  Our  school  system  fails  in  instilling  morality  " ; 
of  President  C.  W.  Eliot,  who  thinks  the  intelligence  it  gen- 
erates is  not  effective  and  is  hardly  worth  its  cost ;  of  Admiral 
Evans,  who  pronounced  its  product  contemptible;  of  Edison, 
who  complained  that  it  utterly  ignored  applied  science;  of- 
Rabbi  Hirsch,  that  it  is  an  almost  bankrupt  institution;  of 
Frederick  Harrison,  that  it  is  very  successful  in  turning  out 
uniform  stupid  types  devoid  of  originality.  C.  H.  Johnston  ^ 
thinks  that  perhaps  we  should  compel  all  employers  of  boys 
up  to  seventeen  to  allow  them  to  continue  their  education  at 
some  favorable  art  of  the  day,  and  that  we  must  radically  re- 
construct our  educational  machinery  and  curriculum.  At  pres- 
ent there  are  scores  of  supplementary  institutions  to  do  what 
the  school  fails  to  do.  It  has  to  be  amplified  here,  mended 
there,  patched  in  one  place,  pinched  in  another.  Type  after 
type  of  child  is  more  or  less  segregated  as  needing  special 
attention.  To  a  recent  writer  who  declared  that  culture 
and  hard  work  were  incompatible  and  that  the  gentleman's 
graduating  mark  is  C,  this  being  the  lowest  passing  mark, 
we  would  insist  that  good  laundry  work  is  better  than  bad 
Latin.^' 

Our  system  is  undemocratic.  It  is  absurd  to  speak  of  the 
dignity  of  labor  and  yet  not  consider  its  elements  worthy  the 
dignity  of  being  taught  in  our  schools.  "  It  is  a  fair  ques- 
tion," says  one  writer,  "  to  ask  now  what  good  it  does  the 
average  boy  to  go  to  school  after  the  fifth  or  sixth  grade." 
Those  who  do  so  are  at  best  only  being  trained  for  positions 
of  a  clerical  nature,  while  constructive  interests  are  suppressed. 

>  The  Social  Significance  of  Various  Movements  for  Industrial  Education. 
Educational  Review,  1909.     Vol.  37,  pp.  160-180. 

2  See  J.  G.  Croswell:  The  One  Thing  Needful.  Educational  Review,  1909. 
Vol.  37,  pp.  142-159- 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  617 

We  train  all  alike,  and  take  small  account  of  individual  dif- 
ferences, although  it  is  on  these  that  success  largely  depends. 
Each  should  become  conscious  of  personal  powers,  but  we  de- 
velop ignorance  of  these  and  allow  them  to  slumber,  as  con- 
trasted with  Huxley's  idea  of  a  school  as  a  capacity-catching 
and  -developing  machine.  While  the  higher  technical  schools 
here  compare  not  unfavorably  with  those  in  Europe,  we  focus 
on  the  top  rungs  of  the  ladder  and  let  those  on  the  bottom 
take  care  of  themselves.  Hence,  as  Commissioner  Draper,  of 
New  York,  says,  "  Germany  is  educationally  more  democratic 
than  the  United  States."  We  take  no  cognizance  of  the  pu- 
pil's destiny,  make  no  distinction  between  capacities  and  pro- 
clivities. Those  who  leave  are  usually  those  not  equipped  for 
the  unique  work  of  the  higher  grades,  which  will  always  ap- 
peal to  but  a  few,  or  else  they  are  those  with  vocational  pro- 
clivities who  become  dissatisfied  with  the  school.  The  boy 
who  goes  on  till  fourteen  or  after  has  learned  much  which  he 
cannot  apply,  and  which  is,  therefore,  forgotten  as  soon  as 
he  leaves,  so  that  by  eighteen  or  nineteen  he  is  more  igno- 
rant than  when  he  left  school ;  thus  the  investment  which  the 
state  made  in  his  education  is  wasted.  At  this  latter  age  the 
boy  should  feel  tolerably  sure  not  only  of  a  livelihood,  but  of 
advancement.  Our  high  school  to-day  is  chiefly  for  those 
who  have  no  idea  what  is  ahead  of  them  or  else  for  a  very 
few  who  are  fitting  for  some  higher  institution.  They  are 
taught  a  few  general  principles  of  drawing,  mathematics, 
physics,  chemistry,  etc. ;  but  the  physics  and  chemistry  of 
nothing  in  particular,  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  each  of  these 
studies  is  vaster  than  a  lifetime  can  master,  and  that  to  apply 
a  portion  of  it  or  to  use  it  in  some  field  is  the  only  goal  that 
will  ever  make  a  knowledge  of  them  more  than  useless  lum- 
ber in  their  minds.  In  the  simpler,  earlier,  rural  conditions, 
the  school  touched  life;  but  under  the  present  complex,  urban, 
industrial  status,  the  school  has  grown  more  and  more  isolated. 
Perhaps  our  schools  are  gaining  efficiency  along  their  own 
peculiar  lines,  as  the  late  Springfield  tests  on  old  examination 
])apers  of  a  hundred  years  ago  in  geography,  arithmetic,  and 
spelling — a  test  repeated  at  Boston  and  elsewhere-  with  the 
same  result — seem  to  show.  But  an  inactive  life  can  never 
appeal  to  the  active  boy  in  the  early  teens,  but  may  develop 


6i8  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

habits  of  idleness,  lack  of  definite  purpose  and  disposition  to 
look  forward ;  and  so  the  harvest  at  eighteen  is  unsatisfactory. 
The  book-world  pupils  learn  in  school  is  remote,  far  more  so 
than  it  need  be,  from  that  which  they  find  themselves  in.  Had 
they  even  studied  the  political,  industrial,  and  social  problems 
of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome  and  modern  Europe,  instead  of 
the  grammar  and  languages  of  these  countries,  they  would 
have  been  better  able  to  interpret  present  history  and  grasp 
our  and  their  own  problems.  Again,  teachers  usually  imme- 
diately lose  sight  of  all  their  pupils  who  drop  out  from  twelve 
to  sixteen,  when  it  is  those  children  who  especially  need  guid- 
ance as  they  near  the  end  of  their  schooling  and  especially 
just  as  they  leave  it.  Hence,  more  attention  should  be  given 
to  all  as  the  age  of  compulsory  attendance  draws  toward  a 
close.  Even  the  learned  professions  are  only  trades  that  split 
off  earlier  in  history ;  and  we  must  now  carry  the  idea  of  pro- 
fessional training  down  into  the  public  schools,  so  that  here 
belongs  the  vocational  bureau.  Great  teachers  have  often 
kept  hold  of  and  guided  their  pupils  after  they  left,  especially 
those  who  dropped  out  prematurely.  No  boy  should  leave 
without  some  idea  of  the  industrial  conditions  of  his  own 
environment  and  some  conception  of  what  he  is,  and  perhaps, 
still  more  important,  what  he  is  not  fitted  for.  Hence,  as 
E.  C.  Morse  well  says,  geography,  English,  history  should 
so  far  as  possible  have  a  local  focus  and  be  connected  with  raw 
material,  markets,  etc.,  of  local  industries.  Boys  of  twelve 
should  know  something  of  the  establishments,  history,  and 
processes  of  the  larger  concerns  of  their  own  environment. 
In  every  textile  center,  e.  g.,  there  should  be  a  textile  museum 
in  the  school,  stories  written  on  subjects  connected  with  it, 
and  Morse  suggests  that  such  written  material  might  in  time 
accumulate  so  that  it  could  be  developed  into  a  book  to  be 
used  in  the  public  schools  of  the  town,  such  as  I  shall  else- 
where indicate  for  each  trade.  Manufacturers  should  co- 
operate by  a  loan  of  files  of  their  journals;  the  public  library 
should  fall  into  line ;  teachers  should  be  given  leave  of  ab- 
sence from  their  duties  occasionally  to  prepare  pamphlets  on 
the  industries  of  the  town.  In  a  school  in  Cork,  each  room 
was  surrounded  by  cases  containing  every  stage  of  manufac- 
ture from  the  raw  material  to  the  finished  product;  and  yet 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  619 

this  was  not  a  trade  school.  Why  should  we  educate  away 
from  trades,  farms,  etc.  ?  Were  our  grandmothers  the  worse 
for  weaving,  spinning,  making  candles,  soap,  etc.  ?  We  might 
make  it  a  rule  that  every  industrial  course  should  fit  for  some- 
thing higher  as  well  as  for  life;  but  if  we  did  so,  this  should 
be  only  incidental.  At  present  employers,  says  J.  P.  Haney, 
have  no  suggestion  as  to.  the  vocational  training  of  boys  be- 
fore sixteen;  while  teachers  are  often  thinking  of  an  earlier 
age.  Boys  are  rarely  wanted  in  shops  before  sixteen.  He, 
too,  insists  that  by  the  sixth  school  year  the  elementary  capac- 
ities of  pupils  may  be  pretty  well  detected.  Those  with  pro- 
clivities should  have  their  needs  met ;  and  this  should  be  made 
the  core  of  their  teaching  and  not  incidental.  This  kind  of 
training  should  begin  near  the  sixth  grade,  where  the  defec- 
tion is  most  marked.  Various  schools  might  be  so  organized 
as  to  lead  to  a  particular  group  of  industries;  but  we  must 
always,  where  possible,  secure  the  advantage  of  shop  disci- 
pline ;  and  thus  with  short,  long,  evening,  partial,  continuation, 
apprentice,  technical,  and  every  other  kind  of  school,  we  may 
at  last  hope  to  do  our  duty  to  the  rising  generation  and  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  nation. 

Mr.  A.  D.  Dean,  of  New  York,  is  averse  to  any  scheme 
that  does  not  stress  the  local  industrial  environvient.  His  plan 
is  that,  if  there  are  25  boys  who  wish  to  learn  the  plumber's 
trade  at  the  age  of  14,  or  25  girls  who  wish  to  learn  dress- 
making, instruction  must  be  provided;  and  the  same  for  any 
other  group.  This  would  give  our  educational  system  flexi- 
bility. Schools  should  certainly  be  open  day  and  evening. 
Mary  A.  Van  Kleek  insists  that  every  single  trade  must  be 
long  and  carefully  investigated  by  commissioners  or  paid  ex- 
perts before  conclusions  regarding  industrial  education  in  that 
trade  can  be  reached.  She  reports  that  3  investigators  have 
studied  2  trades  on  Manhattan  Island  for  more  than  a  year, 
but  that  their  practical  results  are  not  yet  ready  for  publica- 
tion. It  Cannot  be  planned  apart  from  constantly  changing 
conditions  in  each  locality.  Information  usually  gathered  is 
far  too  general  to  be  of  use.  We  must  not  confuse  indus- 
trial and  vocational  education.  The  only  really  valuable 
material  is  information  concerning  conditions  in  each  trade 
in  the  community  where  the  trade  training  is  to  be  introduced. 


620  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

The  visits  by  pupils  to  shops  and  factories  should  be  habitual; 
the  practical  should  always,  as  it  naturally  does,  precede  the 
theoretical.  The  industrial  schools  ought  to  exist  at  least  ii 
months  in  the  year,  and  the  shop  equipment  should  be  the 
latest  and  best  under  a  skilled  mechanic.  Public  money  must 
not  be  focused  upon  one,  to  the  neglect  of  other,  local 
industries.  Here  we  have  quite  a  history  of  failures.  Pub- 
lic sentiment  is  too  shifting  to  maintain  a  higher  standard. 
In  one  American  city,  the  entire  prosperity  of  which  depends 
upon  the  skill  and  intelligence  of  workmen,  a  fine  school  was 
slowly  built  up  that  was  of  great  aid  to  the  chief  industry  of 
the  town ;  but  finally  rival  industries  combined  and  a  reaction- 
ary board  came  in,  so  that  all  the  progress  of  years  was  lost. 
Now  although  most  of  these  censures  are  directed  against 
the  school  system  generally  and  show  the  now  rapidly  rising 
tide  of  public  discontent  with  former  and  present  matter  and 
methods,  many  of  them  apply  to  manual  training  with  almost 
unabated  force.  The  stock  manual  training  courses  we  not 
infrequently  find  taught  to  pubescent  boys  by  women — a  more 
absurd  pedagogic  monstrosity  can  hardly  be  conceived.  If 
even  the  upper  grammar  grades  are  becoming  more  and  more 
girls'  classes  in  general,  the  effeminate  type  of  manual  training 
takes  away  the  virile  element  just  at  that  critical  age  when 
boys  desert  school  most  rapidly,  should  be  turned  over  to  their 
fathers  at  home,  and  need  male  teachers  most.  Now  the 
courses  that  I  have  plead  for  above  are  preeminently  boys' 
courses  and  need  men  to  teach  them,  and  would  tend  to  bring 
the  lost  male  factor  back  into  the  school.  They  would  allow 
some  of  the  natural  sex  bifurcation  so  imperatively  needed 
when  the  dawn  of  the  teens  comes.  The  boast  often  made 
that  girls  do  as  well  as  boy^  in  manual  courses  is  sufficient 
to  condemn  these  courses,  as  all  the  many  studies  of  compara- 
tive hand  power  of  the  sexes,  that  is  so  rapidly  diminishing 
at  this  age,  conclusively  show.  Industrial  training  for  boys 
at  this  stage  of  life  can  thus  never  be  well  taught  by  women; 
nor  can  girls  ever  equal  boys  in  it.  All  sensible  women,  un- 
scarred  by  the  war  of  sex  against  sex,  admit  this.  Hence, 
even  if  it  costs  more,  we  must  have  men.  To  those  nations 
with  the  true  instinct  of  parenthood  nothing  is  too  good  or 
too  costly  for  the  real  needs  of  children.     In  view  of  all  the 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  621 

above  facts,  must  we  not  admit,  if  we  are  candid,  that  we  have 
blindly  and  shamefully  neglected  the  needs  of  our  boys,  that, 
so  far  as  they  are  concerned,  our  school  system  almost  ought 
to  be  declared  bankrupt  and  start  afresh.  If  the  remedies  here 
suggested  are  not  the  true  and  best  cure  for  this  grave  dis- 
ease, it  behooves  us  to  give  ourselves  no  rest  till  we  have  found 
a  better  one. 

The  combination  of  fit  reading  with  hand  work,  advo- 
cated above  for  toys  and  elementary  scientific  apparatus, 
might  also  be  applied  in  modulating  over  to  more  vocational 
training,  although  the  book  side,  whence  should  come  the 
intellectual  appeal,  is  as  yet  slightly  developed.  Glasszcork, 
e.  g.,  dates  from  ancient  Egypt,  and  its  history  is  fascinating. 
Till  about  a  century  ago  glass  blowing  was  often  a  profession 
for  gentlemen.  Its  educational  value  for  the  hand,  in  training 
it  to  work  under  the  guidance  of  the  eye  and  brain,  has  al- 
ways been  rated  high.  Thomas  Bolas  ^  brings  out  much  of 
its  charm.  His  work  implies  a  little  knowledge  of  physics 
and  chemistry.  The  apparatus  needful  would  take  little  more 
room  than  a  sewing  machine,  and  he  thinks  should  be  not 
only  in  every  school  but  in  every  house  where  there  are  young 
people.  He  compares  its  training  value  to  piano  playing. 
The  story  of  the  origin  of  the  different  kinds  of  glass  and 
their  manipulation  from  antiquity  down  is  of  the  greatest  in- 
terest and  culture  value.  He  combines  the  story  and  use  of 
blowpipes,  bellows,  methods  of  effecting  rapid  change  from 
large  to  small  jets,  lamps,  stopcocks,  glass  knives,  files,  how 
to  lead  a  crack,  calipers,  grinders,  cleaners,  rods  and  tubes, 
gauging,  cleaning,  rifting,  abrasion,  sealing  bulbs,  perforating, 
bending,  joining  and  branching,  gradations,  etching,  annealing, 
connecting  tubes  with  metal  fittings,  how  to  make  thermome- 
ters, vacuum  pipes,  barometers,  phosphorescent  tubes,  glass 
pens,  lenses,  and  even  how  to  color  and  stain.  His  work  is 
admirably  illustrated,  and  there  is  an  interesting  color  plate 
of  articles  made  with  a  simple  blowpipe,  with  a  bibliography 
on  glass  work.     \V.  A.  Shenstone's  book  -  is  briefer  and  in  a 

•  Glass  Blowing  and  Working  for  Amateurs,  Experimentalists,  and  Technicians. 
N.  Y.,  Truslove,  1898.     at  2  p. 

*  Methods  of  Glass  Blowing  for  the  Use  of  Physical  and  Chemical  Students. 
Lond.,   Rivington,    1889.     86  p.     Sec  also  W.    Roscnhain:   Glass  Manufacture. 


622  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

sense  more  advanced,  describing  how  to  cut,  bend,  make  funnels, 
graduate  and  calibrate.  A  bright  boy,  he  says,  can  be  taught 
on  the  first  day  how  to  make  a  thermometer,  and  it  would  not 
take  long  to  show  him  a  little  of  the  methods  of  lens  grinding, 
annealing,  working  in  fluoric  colors,  making  stoppers,  chok- 
ing in  and  contracting  bores,  making  U  and  spiral  tubes  and 
very  simple  chemical  apparatus.  This  work  has  been  success- 
fully taught  to  boys  at  South  Kensington.  These  books  show 
at  least  what  could  be  done  in  the  way  of  further  adaptation 
and  adjustment  to  every  grade  and  even  to  very  young  boys. 
Again,  plumbing  gives  us  another  combination  of  brain 
and  hand  work  which  F.  W.  Tower  ^  has  described  in  an  in- 
teresting and  suggestive  way.  Water  next  to  air  is  the  prime 
support  of  life.  By  its  power  to  transmit  pressure  it  becomes 
in  a  sense  a  machine,  natural  supply  being  dependent  upon 
gravity.  A  treatment  of  wells  opens  an  interesting  chapter 
in  biology.  Pumps,  hydraulic  rams  and  water  meters  do  the 
same  in  physics,  filters  for  chemistry,  boilers  for  hydrody- 
namics and  to  introduce  steam  power  generally;  while  tanks, 
metals,  solder,  joining,  waste,  drainage,  subsoil,  ventilation, 
traps,  siphonage  friction,  air  locks,  water  hammers,  electroly- 
sis, sinks,  baths,  lavatories,  sewage — are  all  treated  in  a  way 
that  links  science  and  health  and  hand  power,  and  shows  the 
real  dignity  of  this  profession.  This  work  is  a  text  with 
question  and  answer  covering  interesting  points.  H.  Rowell  ^ 
treats  in  a  condensed  way  of  the  utilization  of  chemicals,  in- 
cluding blowpipe,  lamp,  alloys,  spelters,  oxidization,  fluxes, 
structure  of  flame,  heat  transmission,  radiation,  forge,  hearth, 
tongs,  property  of  metals  and  their  fusibility  with  alloys,  vari- 
ous polishes,  colors,  hardening,  sweating,  etc. 


N.  Y.,  Van  Nostrand,  1908.  264  p.  A.  L.  Duthrie:  Decorative  Glass  Processes. 
N.  Y.,  Van  Nostrand,  1909.  278  p.  P.  N.  Hasluck:  Glass  Writing,  Embossing 
and  Fascia  Work.     Phila.,  McKay,  1906.     160  p. 

>  Plumbers'  Manual  and  Text-book;  Dictionary  of  Plumbing  Terms.  Spring- 
field, Lyman,  1901.     242  p. 

2  Manual  of  Instruction  in  Hard  Soldering.  N.  Y.,  Baird,  1901.  56  p.  See 
also  J.  J.  Cosgrove:  Principles  and  Practice  of  Plumbing.  Standard  Sanitary 
Mfg.,  1907.  278  p.  P.  J.  Davies:  Standard  Practical  Plumbing.  N.  Y.,  Spon, 
1907.  3  V.  F.  W.  Raynes:  Domestic  Sanitary  Engineering  and  Plumbing. 
N.  Y.,  Longmans,  1909.  474  p.  C.  B.  Ball  and  H.  T.  Sherriff :  Plvunbing  Cate- 
chism.    Chic,  Domestic  Engineering,  1908.     123  p. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  623 

In  a  still  different  way  we  might  and  should  combine  in- 
tellectual interests  with  the  mere  deftness  now  cultivated  in 
raffia  work  and  splint  interlacing.  Every  teacher  in  this  de- 
partment should  saturate  his  mind  with  such  literature  as  that 
which  has  one  of  its  most  exquisite  illustrations  in  the  pri- 
vately printed  volume  of  G.  W.  James, ^  who  considers  bas- 
ketry the  mother  of  poetry,  and  shows  its  relations  to  Indian 
legends  and  ceremonials,  describes  the  tribes,  colors,  materials, 
weaves,  stitches,  designs,  uses,  conventionalization,  and  the 
marvelous  way  in  which  the  symbolism  of  animals,  plants,  the 
sky,  sea,  which  is  often  sacredly  secret,  is  wrought  out. 

This  art  is  now  in  a  state  of  decay  owing  to  "  the  iconoclastic 
effects  of  our  civilization  upon  a  simple-hearted  people."  "  In  the 
noonday  of  this  art  the  basket  was  the  woman's  battlefield.  In 
it  she  won  her  triumphs  and  suffered  her  defeats."  To  be  the 
best  weaver  was  the  height  of  her  ambition  and  to  succeed  gave 
great  influence.  It  was  an  accomplishment  like  piano  playing  and 
brought  suitors.  There  were  a  few  true  artists.  "  It  would  be  a 
calamity  to  Indians  and  Whites  alike  were  this  art  allowed  to  die." 
"  In  its  salvation  a  greater  good  can  be  done  the  Indian  than  by  a 
century's  distribution  of  supplies."  Those  who  educate  the  Indians 
should  have  mothers  teach  their  daughters  and  teach  them  in  every 
Reservation  school.  These  weavers  should  be  well  paid  for  teaching 
all  that  is  in  them.  Whites  should  sit  at  their  feet  and  a  renaissance 
here  would  bring  increased  respect  for  the  Indian  as  well  as  financial 
return.  Symbolism  plays  an  immense  role  here.  Some  makers  have 
their  own  designs  and  conventionalities,  the  meaning  of  which  it  is 
often  hard  to  learn  because  of  reserve,  fear  of  ridicule,  etc.  Many  de- 
signs are  still  as  unread  as  was  the  Rosetta  Stone ;  and  many  a  home- 
staying  woman  has  put  her  life  into  patterns,  as  white  artists  do  into 
books  and  pictures.  The  weaver  may  put  her  whole  soul  or  secret 
history  into- her  work,  gathering  suggestions  from  everything  about 
her.  One  large  and  marvelously  artistic  basket  with  concentric 
rings  diminishing  at  the  bottom  to  a  dot  was  explained.  "  With 
touching  pathos  the  maker  said  she  intended  that  the  lessening 
circles  should  determine  the  lessening  power  and  numbers  of  her 
people."  She  said  when  her  people  first  arrived,  they  were  under 
the  direct  smile  and  approval  of  those  above,  were  great  as  the 
larger  circle;  then  came  the  padres  and  took  away  one  privilege  after 
another  until  they  were  reduced  to  this  (pointing  to  a  smaller  circle 
farther  down)  ;  then  came  the  Mexicans  who  brought  further  cur- 
tailment; then  the  Americans,  and  the  circles  representing  her 
people  grew  smaller  and  smaller  until  soon  only  the  dot   and  then 

'Indian  Basketry.    N.  Y.,  Malkan,  1901.     ^74  P- 


624  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

nothing  would  remain.  Another  basket  showed  flying  bats  supposed 
to  suck  the  breath,  to  hold  propitiatory  offerings  to  the  higher 
powers,  to  keep  away  these  and  all  evils;  this  basket  took  almost  a 
lifetime  to  weave.  Another  made  by  a  widow,  whose  husband  was 
shot  by  Jim  Farrar,  is  told  in  H.  H.'s  "  Ramona."  She  could  not 
sleep  from  grief  and  gazed  into  the  night  sky  thinking  of  what  the 
padre  said  that  there  she  would  meet  her  husband.  So  she  hoped 
long  and  loved  the  stars  and  in  token  of  this  and  her  grief  made  her 
star  basket.  But  she  waited  long  and  could  not  go  to  the  skies,  and 
so  found  the  basket  a  liar.  It  said  go,  and  she  went  not,  and  so  she 
sold  it.  Although  greatly  excited  when  it  was  brought  back  to  her, 
she  would  not  take  it  again,  for  she  had  abandoned  hope  and  the 
promises  of  religion.  In  another  basket,  circles  stand  for  the  vil- 
lages of  the  Sabobas,  with  a  link  to  connect  them ;  above  were  moun- 
tains with  the  sun  peeping  over  them  into  the  valleys;  there  was  an 
evening  and  morning  star  to  assure  the  makers  that  those  above  had 
not  deserted  them.  Another  with  many  stitches  and  crosses  was 
thus  explained  by  the  weaver:  she  was  often  tired  and  angered  at 
the  domineering  Whites  and,  as  she  lay  down,  gazed  at  the  stars  and 
the  Milky  Way  and  longed  to  die  that  her  spirit  might  walk  this 
path  of  light  and  look  down  upon  the  W'hites  in  the  trouble  she 
hoped  would  punish  them.  Often,  too,  on  their  sashes  and  buckskin 
shirts  are  emblazoned  their  signs  of  the  heavenly  bodies — rainbow, 
fire,  hail,  butterfly,  snake,  beetle,  and  other  powers  to  which  they 
appeal  for  aid  in  hours  of  distress. 


All  these  and  many  more  lead  up  to  another  conclusion 
which  years  of  study  of  the  problem  of  industrial  education 
has  confirmed  in  my  own  mind — and  that  is  the  urgent  neces- 
sity now  of  books  on  the  leading  trades  addressed  to  the 
young.  The  leather  industry,  particularly  boot  and  shoe 
manufacture,  is  perhaps  the  most  highly  specialized  of  all  in 
the  sense  that  an  operator  may  work  a  lifetime  in  any  one  of 
the  between  three  and  four  score  processes  through  which  a 
shoe  passes  and  know  little  of  all  the  rest.  Now  the  Shoe 
Book  should  describe  hides  and  leathers,  tanning — old  and 
new  methods,  with  a  little  of  the  natural  history  of  the  ani- 
mals, describe  the  process  of  taking  them,  of  curing  and  ship- 
ping, each  stage  in  the  factory,  designating  those  processes 
that  require  skill  and  those  that  do  not,  and  so  on  to  packing, 
labeling  and  shipping,  with  descriptions  showing  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  chief  machines  and  labor-saving  devices,  at  any 
rate  so  far  as  they  are  not  trade  secrets;  it  should  include  a 
glance  at  markets,  prices,  effects  of  business  advance,  depres- 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  625 

sion  and  strikes,  perhaps  something  about  the  hygiene  of  the 
foot,  about  bootblacks  and  what  is  done  for  them,  history  of 
the  festivals  and  organizations  from  St.  Crispin  and  the  gilds 
down,  tariffs,  syndicates,  societies,  statistics,  social  conditions 
in  shoe  towns,  nationality  of  operatives — all  these  could  be 
concisely  set  forth  to  show  the  dimensions,  the  centers  of  in- 
terest, the  social  and  commercial  relations  of  the  business, 
etc.  What  is  not  yet  realized  is  that  all  these  things  could  and 
should  be  put  down  in  print  and  picture,  almost  as  if  it  were 
to  be  issued  as  a  text-book  or  a  series  of  them;  all  this  could 
be  done  to  bring  out  the  very  high  degree  of  culture  value 
now  latent  in  the  subject.  Just  this  is  what  pedagogues  do 
not  and  will  not  see  and  what  even  shoe  men  fail  to  realize; 
viz.,  that  the  story  of  their  craft,  rightly  told,  would  tend 
to  give  it  some  degree  of  professional  and  humanistic  interest 
and  dignity  which  the  most  unskilled  and  transient  employee 
would  feel.  It  would  foster  an  esprit  de  corps,  pride  in 
membership  and,  above  all,  an  intelligent  view  of  the  whole 
field  that  would  make  labor  more  valuable  and  more  loyal. 
This  material,  once  gathered,  should  be  used  in  some  form  in 
all  industrial  schools  and  courses  in  towns  where  this  indus- 
try dominates.  It  would  bring  a  wholesome  sense  of  cor- 
poreity, historic  and  economic  unity,  would  give  a  touch  of 
the  old  gild  spirit,  and  more  power  to  see  both  sides  on  the 
part  of  both  employers  and  workmen.  Nothing  is  so  truly 
educational  in  the  deepest  psychological  sense  of  that  word 
as  useful  information  vitalized  by  individual  and  vocational 
interest ;  and  at  the  present  psychological  moment,  nothing 
would  be  more  helpful  than  a  book  each  on  some  score  or 
more  other  great  industries.  It  cannot  be  too  strongly  affirmed 
or  too  often  reiterated  that  industrial  leaders  and  corpora- 
tions should  take  up  without  delay  and  with  such  aid  as  exi)ert 
economists  and  others  could  give,  not  entirely  ignoring  the 
view  point  of  the  social  welfare  worker,  the  task  of  distilling, 
putting  up  and  lal^eling  the  wisdom  of  each  craft  edited 
broadly  and  up  to  date  with  copious  concrete  instances  as  a 
vadc  mccxim  to  their  trade.  Training  in  manipulation  under 
the  most  skilled  artisans  is  not  enough.  The  intellect  tinist  be 
strongly  appealed  to.  The  knowledge  of  all  should  Ih*  culled 
and  curriculized.  The  business  itself  should  be  an  ol)ject  of 
41 


626  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

study — its  social  influences,  its  relations  to  human  well-being : 
longevity,  health,  fecundity,  so  that  a  vocational  bureau  could 
use  it  in  advising  individual  youth  as  to  their  calling.  Not 
until  something  like  this  is  done  can  we  ever  hope  to  lay  any 
solid  foundations  for  industrial  education.  This,  then,  is  the 
problem  that  pedagogy  to-day  puts  up  to  industrialists:  e.  g., 
to  manufacturers  who  are  generally  very  ready  to  suggest, 
urge,  and  profit  by  such  modifications  of  the  curriculum  as 
will  relieve  them  of  any  necessity  of  training  their  apprentices, 
and  will  prepare  and  perhaps  incline  young  people  of  the  com- 
munity to  render  them  more  effective  service.  By  coopera- 
ting thiis  they  can  save  themselves  from  the  charge  of  seek- 
ing to  advance  their  private  interests  at  the  expense  of  our 
educational  system.  Thus  they  should  be  invoked  to  open 
up  with  as  little  reservation  as  possible  everything  that  can 
have  educative  value.  Labor  and  capital  should  both  be 
heard  from  with  impartial  scientific  frankness.  The  less  sup- 
pression, the  greater  the  ultimate  advantage  and,  even  if  tem- 
porary difficulties  resulted,  there  would  be  good  in  the  end 
because  a  spirit  of  increased  cooperation  and  a  larger  field  of 
common  interests  would  be  certain;  and  trade  spirit,  trade 
pride,  similar  in  psychic  quality  to  that  of  the  so-called  learned 
professions,  would  be  gained  and,  most  valuable  of  all,  new 
psychological  forces  so  intangible  yet  so  potent  would  be  set 
free  and  enlisted  in  the  advancement  of  unity  and  solidarity.^ 
The  same  holds  true  with,  of  course,  infinite  variations  of 
detail  in  the  domain  of  every  great  and,  to  some  extent,  of 
the  small  industries.  This  is  a  crying  need  for  metal  workers, 
paper  makers,  wool  and  cotton  textile  laborers,  coal  and  other 

'  Moving  pictures  are  beginning  to  show  their  value  in  industrial  education. 
By  judicious  selection  and  composition  of  films,  scenes,  the  scientific  processes  in 
iron  and  steel  work,  the  story  of  the  railroad  rail,  steel  plate,  boiler  making,  casting, 
forging,  also  plate  brass  and  bottle  making,  the  construction  of  church  bells,  wire 
rope,  cordage  manufacture,  mining  of  various  kinds,  gold  washing,  the  making 
of  money — both  coinage  and  bills — as  well  as  shoes,  hats,  clothes,  machinery, 
farming  processes,  shipbuilding  and  loading,  transportation  of  produce  and  live 
stock,  bridge  making,  submarine  work  and  tunneling,  whaling,  all  kinds  of  sports, 
and  even  battles.  Film  photography  can  slow  down  rapid  processes  by  stretching 
time  and  can  accelerate  slow  ones;  and  can  even  reverse  events.  With  suitable 
explanation,  this  most  marvelous  pedagogic  instrument  with  more  promise  and 
potency  in  it  for  education  than  any  discovery  since  Gutenberg  can  be  made  of 
indefinitely  potent  eflSciency  here. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  627 

miners,  dyers,  dressmakers,  milliners,  typothetes,  stone  cut- 
ters, masons,  etc.  It  is  also  needed  in  the  food  trades;  for 
instance,  the  problems  of  fisheries  and  fish  markets  and  hatch- 
eries should  be  set  forth  in  compendiums,  wise  and  up-to-date 
form.  The  same  is  true  of  milk  and  the  dairy.  I  have  been 
amazed  to  see  from  one  of  our  social  surveys  how  instructive 
and  edifying  is  the  compilation  of  facts  pertaining  to  the  egg 
and  poultry  business  of  a  single  city.  The  same  is  true  of 
meat,  cereals,  bread,  bakeries,  drinks  and  all  the  staples  of  the 
table.  Each  needs  book  presentation  according  to  a  carefully 
prepared  scheme  which  would,  of  course,  have  to  be  all  the 
time  departed  from.  Geography,  history,  arithmetic,  and  even 
English  could  be  developed  incidentally.  To  throw  a  topic 
from  the  focus  to  the  indirect  field  of  mental  vision  with  the 
young  is  often  itself  a  wondrous  gain.  There  is  plenty  of 
opportunity  for  recording  triumphs  of  enterprise,  epochs  that 
are  fateful  for  the  future,  for  bringing  out  economic  prin- 
ciples in  a  most  striking  way,  for  showing  political  relations, 
etc.  All  this  we  simply  must  have  before  any  industrial  cur- 
riculum that  is  adequate  and  effective  can  be  complete;  and 
the  same  is  no  less  true  in  educating  for  financial  and  com- 
mercial occupations. 

This  vast  domain  of  producing,  making,  and  distributing 
what  we  have  come  to  call  "  goods  "  (as  if  these  products 
had  a  monopoly  of  this  term)  absorbs  most  of  the  ability 
and  of  the  effort  of  the  adult  world  to-day.  Here  the  strug- 
gle for  survival  is  most  intense.  What  we  call  business  is 
a  great  booming  world,  the  laws  of  which  we  are  only  begin- 
ning to  understand  and  where  science  will  always  have  to  be 
far  behind  actual  life  and  experience.  Business  has  long  since 
subordinated  the  legal,  to  say  nothing  of  the  clerical  and  medi- 
cal and  technological  professions  which  it  supports.  Its  en- 
terprise rules  the  world.  It  is  setting  new  fashions  in  art,  as 
well  as  in  industry,  and  demanding  new  standards  of  effi- 
ciency in  school,  college,  and  university,  urging  trust  methods 
of  bookkeeping  upon  the  higher  institutions  of  learning,  rec- 
ommending its  modes  of  measuring  capability  and  dealing 
with  those  who  grow  ineffective;  it  has  its  own  very  volu- 
minous, scattered,  special,  technical  literature,  but  there  is  no 
adequate  introduction,   no  bridge  over  which  interested  and 


628  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ambitious  youth  can  enter  during  the  years  of  study  when 
books,  whatever  the  practical  man  may  think  of  them  later, 
get  in  their  chief  work  during  the  reading  age,  which  is  the 
teens.  The  American  boy  and  youth  in  general,  almost  in 
exact  proportion  as  he  is  vigorous  and  ambitious,  feels  these 
throbbing  interests  calling  him.  He  also  feels  that  he  is  re- 
moved and  isolated  from  them  in  the  schoolroom,  becomes 
restless  and  leaves,  because  he  wishes  to  find  some  point  of 
entrance  into  the  world  where  adult  men  live  out  their  lives. 
Perhaps  he  takes  a  job  on  the  outskirts  of  the  industrial  world, 
soon  masters  its  petty  details  and  the  modicum  of  knowledge 
it  requires,  and  then,  feeling  that  he  is  neither  learning  nor 
advancing,  drops  off  and  tries  another  approach.  Despite 
much  recent  progress,  the  school  method  and  spirit  is  still  too 
often  about  what  it  would  be  if  its  main  purpose  had  been  to 
shelter  and  protect  young  people  from  industrial  and  com- 
mercial interests,  insights,  skills,  and  keep  them  immune  from 
this  contagion. 

If  I  were  charged  with  the  development  of,  e.  g.,  a  textile 
school  in  a  city  of  looms  and  spindles,  I  should  want  at  least 
a  year  of  preliminary  work.  I  would  study  and  try  to  practice 
every  process  of  every  type  of  labor;  I  would  ask  the  leaders 
to  tell  me  all  they  could  suggest  or  I  could  ask  about ;  I  would 
sketch  the  history  of  each  great  plant  in  town  and  the  story 
of  the  development  of  the  industry  itself,  take  photographs, 
get  statistics,  interview  all  the  wiser  workmen,  find  out  every 
possible  point  of  contact  of  the  industry  with  practical  science, 
also  with  legislation,  its  relations  to  other  occupations,  its 
hygienic  conditions,  power  and  its  distribution,  periods  of 
prosperity  and  depression,* labor  troubles,  etc.;  I  would  insist 
upon  the  frankest  and  heartiest  cooperation  on  the  part  of  all 
concerned  and  require  carte  blanche  to  use  everything  of 
pedagogic  value  in  the  largest  sense  of  that  term;  and  then, 
with  the  aid  of  such  material,  I  would  strive  to  grade  and 
curriculize  what  seemed  most  needful  to  develop  the  maxi- 
mum of  culture  and  skill  which  always  should  be  combined, 
utilizing  every  comparative  ray  of  light,  from  the  experiences 
of  other  cities  and  lands. 

Thus,  in  fine,  if  the  school  is  to  help  business,  the  latter 
must  contribute  to  it.      With  all   our   school-mastering  and 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  629 

school-mistressing,  with  all  the  lesson-setting  and  lesson-hear- 
ing and  our  thousands  of  text-books  and  courses,  the  higher 
pedagogy  in  many  fields  and  respects  is  dead  among  us. 
These  are  educational  Dark  Ages.  We  have  so  lost  touch 
with  our  children  in  home  and  school  that  we  do  not  realize 
what  vital  contact  with  them  means.  We  have  no  idea  of  our 
own  decadence,  no  respect  for  our  own  craft  as  instructors, 
and  do  not  know  what  teaching  is,  means  or  can  do,  so  that 
we  need  a  great,  widespread,  pedagogical  revival  and  renais- 
sance in  industrial  as  in  moral  training,  for  we  are  hardly 
awake  here,  but  in  a  sleep  perturbed  happily  now  by  dis- 
quieting dreams.  We  fear  and  falter  when  we  should  rise 
to  the  higher  pedagogic  statesmanship  which  the  history  of 
the  few  great  creative  periods  in  education  should  teach  us. 
Hitherto  we  have  studied  this  history  for  its  practical  details. 
Now  we  should  focus  upon  its  greatest  reconstructive  periods 
and  profit  by  their  lesson.  We  need  to  make  a  very  com- 
prehensive survey  and  lay  out  new  pathways  from  the  fron- 
tier of  adult  endeavor  down  to  childhood. 


How  did  the  church  come  to  its  power?  It  built  schools  hard  by 
the  cathedrals  and  cloisters,  wrought  out  a  body  of  doctrine  (which 
means  teaching),  with  elaborate  modes  of  inculcation  for  novices, 
adepts,  acolytes ;  it  drilled,  taught,  initiated  step  by  step,  and  pene- 
trated every  department  of  life,  devised  liturgies,  rituals,  cere- 
monials, festivals,  pageants,  dramas,  grafted  upon  every  pagan 
belief,  rite,  custom,  and  myth,  always  giving  each  some  more  spir- 
itual meaning;  it  revised  and  renamed  the  old  pagan  ways  and 
modes  of  worship,  graded,  adopted,  and  adapted,  instilled,  drilled, 
and  thus  led  the  young  people  and  the  always  childish  masses  over 
into  acceptance  and  dtscipleship.  For  the  supernaturally  minded, 
there  were  edifying  miracles;  for  the  insightful,  profound  mysteries; 
for  the  intellectualists,  a  theology  that  expressed  and  exercised  the 
highest  powers  of  reason.  The  more  we  know  of  the  history  of  the 
mediaeval  church,  the  more  clearly  we  see  that  it  won  its  way  into 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  men,  not  by  the  force  of  a  few  sudden, 
wholesale  transformations  which  have  attracted  the  most  attention 
because  they  seem  most  striking  and  have  been  best  recorded,  but  by 
generations  of  cooperative,  devoted  and  laborious  pe«lagogical  en- 
gineering. Doctors  were  all  teachers,  as  the  name  implies.  Under 
their  influence  the  triz'ium  and  the  quadri'i'ium  were  slowly  evolved; 
and  these  were  the  most  belabored,  as  well  as  the  most  lasting  of  all 
curricula  in  history,  admirably  adapted  to  educate  all  from  the  lowest 
to  the  highest  grades  of  service.     This  great  course  was  a  more  or 


630  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

less  genetically  ordered  epitome  of  the  knowledge  of  the  age   ad- 
justed to  each  stage  of  proficiency. 

Again,  take  the  pedagogy  of  Latin  and  Greek  as  slowly  evolved 
by  the  work  of  grammarians  through  many  centuries  of  classical 
literature,  which  laid  under  tribute  the  philological  elements  that 
were  found  in  the  parts  of  speech,  most  of  which  originated  with 
Aristotle.  These  were  ordered,  paradigms  were  selected,  rules 
formulated  with  copious  illustrations  and  exceptions;  lexicons  ever 
more  complete  were  compiled ;  and  thus  another  great  educational 
highway  was  opened  well  furnished  with  handbooks ;  and  so  well 
was  this  work  done  and  so  perfectly  systematized  that  it  has  domi- 
nated even  the  teaching  of  modern  languages,  and  to  many  has 
become  an  end  in  itself  instead  of  a  means.  Now  this  apparatus 
was  designed  for  severe  discipline  and  memoriter  methods  of  teach- 
ing and  learning,  and  it  made  possible  the  early  and  relatively  easy 
mastery  of  the  dead  tongues,  so  that  they  were  kept  alive  long  after 
the  races  that  spoke  them  had  declined  or  died.  The  method  ac- 
quired such  momentum  that  it  still  dominates  in  many  class  rooms, 
and  its  pedagogical  traditions  are  so  strong  that  although  the  spirit 
of  the  ages  changed  and  the  goals  to  be  attained — namely,  the 
knowledge  of  literature  or  the  power  to  speak  and  write  the  tongue — 
have  fallen,  the  method  and  spirit  still  blindly  persist  where  all  sense, 
feeling,  and  knowledge  of  the  real  spirit  of  Greece  and  Rome  are 
absent,  and  even  in  Protestant  lands  where  the  ecclesiastical  uses  of 
Latin  are  unknown.  The  same  lesson  is  taught  in  the  history  of  the 
pedagogy  of  number:  the  four  species,  the  rules,  tables,  procedures, 
often  the  very  problems  themselves,  are  products  of  a  long  consensus 
of  effort  which  sought  to  make  plain  the  way  of  the  learner  and 
which  also  still  survive  because,  like  some  of  the  old  Roman  roads, 
they  are  better  to-day  than  the  cheaper  modern  ones.  It  is  also 
better  set  with  milestones  marking  the  various  steps  toward  pro- 
ficiency. 

Thus  the  great  churchmen,  classicists,  and  mathematicians 
taught  and  wrought  for  the  young,  and  found  deHght  in  guid- 
ing and  inspiring  and  in  interesting  them  in  what  they  were 
interested  in.  Perhaps  cehbacy,  which  deprives  men  of  off- 
spring, gave  psychological  motivation  to  what  must  have  been 
a  genuine  passion  for  spiritual  fatherhood  in  aiding  the  un- 
foldment  of  youthful  minds.  These  systems  were  incessantly 
belabored  by  the  most  advanced  adults.  On  the  other  hand, 
never  was  there  an  educational  system  so  widely  divorced 
from  the  chief  interests  of  adult  life  all  the  way  from  gram- 
mar school  to  college  as  ours  to-day,  never  one  so  pervaded 
by  influences  that  alienate  interest  in  labor,  skilled  or  un- 
skilled.    Academic  youth  graduate  with  the  ideal  of  finding 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  631 

a  ready-made  place  rather  than  of  making  a  position  by  earn- 
ing a  HveHhood  which  represents  real  service  based  upon 
genuine  effort.  Exemption  from  every  earning  activity  dur- 
ing the  plastic  ancl  active  years  of  youth  is  itself  a  danger, 
and  immunity  from  business  knowledge  is  often  sought  by 
students  until  the  inevitable  hour  comes.  A  long  experience 
in  spending  money  does  not  prepare  to  earn  it.  The  few  fa- 
vored and  exceptional  youth  who,  after  taking  their  first  de- 
gree, for  the  first  time  don  overalls  and  begin  at  the  bottom 
of  the  ladder  in  a  chosen  business,  show  a  commendable  spirit ; 
but  they  do  this  wastefully  late,  and  should  have  begun  to 
work  earlier,  and  combined  labor  and  study  from  the  first. 
Latin  may  possibly  help  the  general  intelligence  of  a  master 
mechanic;  but  if  it  does  so,  it  is  only  in  an  infinitesimal  de- 
gree, and  the  same  time  and  effort  put  into  the  theory  and 
practice  of  his  vocation  would  have  yielded  vastly  more  culture 
power  as  well  as  made  him  more  serviceable,  because  there 
would  be  nothing  left  to  atrophy.  Erudition  and  effort  in 
lines  later  to  be  abandoned  do  not  leave  the  faculties  as  a 
whole  stronger  but  weaker.  Primary  ignorance  in  a  subject  is 
interesting;  it  often  gives  strong  curiosity  while  secondary 
ignorance  is  both  devolution  and  disenchantment. 

In  view  of  all  this,  it  is  now  most  pathetic  to  see  the  in- 
numerable schedules,  hour  plans,  courses,  improvised  so  read- 
ily and  launched  so  complacently,  as  solutions  of  the  pressing 
problem  of  industrial  and  business  education.  The  superin- 
tendent in  a  one-industry  town,  for  instance,  whacks  together 
a  melange  of  stock  school  studies,  a  little  manual  training  and 
it  may  be  shop  work,  and  feels  that  his  local  problem  is  solved. 
True,  many  of  these  courses  are  approximations  toward  the 
goal,  but  very  slightly  and  slowly.  Moreover,  they  nearly 
always  omit  the  one  cardinal  thing  which  is  the  combined 
humanistic  and  pragmatic  culture-core  that  is  or  should  be 
always  found  at  the  heart  of  every  industry  in  its  relations 
to  others,  to  society,  and  to  human  well-being,  that  only  a 
systematic  and  exhaustive  survey  can  ever  hope  to  bring  out. 
Every  industry  has  a  purely  hunumistie  element  in  it.  or  it 
could  not  win  the  lifelong  devotion  of  those  engaged  in  it. 
And  whoever  succeeded  who  did  not  love  his  work?  If  this 
element  is  even   relatively  lacking  in   any   industrial   line,   it 


632  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

should  be  found  and  restored,  for  it  is  one  of  the  most 
precious  of  all  assets  even  from  a  mercenary  point  of  view. 
These  teachable  factors  here  postulated  would,  of  course,  be 
those  of  honest,  honorable  business  and  not  those  of  deceit 
and  fraud ;  and  this  would  tend  to  preform  the  youthful  mind 
to  industrial  integrity. 

Employers  complain  of  the  lack  of  skilled  labor,  and  some 
say  they  could  double  their  output  if  they  had  it  and  could 
get  trained  foremen ;  but  the  vast  majority  of  them  are  utterly 
unskilled  themselves  in  handling  their  human  material,  and 
many  of  them  are  densely  ignorant  of  even  the  existence  of 
the  vast  problems  now  challenging  them  here.  The  economic 
loss  which  results  in  the  form  of  friction,  lack  of  interest, 
carelessness,  needless  waste  of  money,  breakage,  and  wear  of 
tools  and  machinery,  is  comparable  to  that  of  great  national 
resources  like  our  forests.  As  long  as  workmen  are  regarded 
as  parts  of  the  machinery,  to  be  dumped  on  the  scrap-heap  as 
soon  as  younger,  stronger  hands  can  be  found,  the  very  point 
of  view  needful  for  the  correct  solution  of  vocational  educa- 
tion is  wanting.  If  corporations  are  soulless  and  impersonal, 
and  stockholders  with  no  contact  with  plants  are  intent  only 
upon  maximal  dividends,  as  long  as  short-sighted  policies 
demand  only  quick  returns  and  large  present  profits  upon  in- 
vestments, little  permanent  progress  is  possible.  If  capitalists 
lack  humanity,  they  should  at  least  be  shown  how  for  their 
own  interests  the  greatest  care  should  be  exercised  in  main- 
taining the  loyalty  of  their  workmen,  which  ideally  should 
be  no  less  than  that  of  collegians  to  their  Alma  Mater.  Their 
comfort,  contentment,  peace  of  mind,  are  precious  assets  with 
high  commercial  value,  which  it  would  pay  to  cultivate,  even 
at  great  pecuniary  outlay.  The  time  will  inevitably  come 
when,  as  experts  are  employed  to  look  over  every  stage  and 
to  see  how  every  process  can  be  simplified  and  cheapened, 
every  waste  and  by-product  and  even  refuse  profitably  worked 
over,  so  expert  social  psychologists  will  be  employed  to  elim- 
inate worry  at  home,  bad  food  and  cooking,  and  to  find  out 
raw  and  sore  friction  points  that  need  lubrication,  so  that  the 
human  machine  will  work  with  the  least  loss  of  energy ;  they 
should  anticipate  danger  and  remove  trouble  before  it  reaches 
the  fulminating  stage;  such  an  expert  should  also  be  always 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  633 

on  the  lookout  for  every  possibility  of  the  expression  of  in- 
dividuality, and  make  not  only  those  capable  of  originality, 
but  all  feel  that  their  work  is  worth  while  and  not  merely  a 
commodity  reluctantly  and  coercively  bartered  on  the  hardest 
terms ;  every  sign  of  responsibility  as  well  as  ability  should  be 
recognized  in  the  interests  of  facilitization.  The  sense  of  in- 
justice is  a  dangerous  and  explosive  thing  in  the  human  soul. 
Instances  where  greater  attention  to  the  nature  and  needs  of 
the  toilers  themselves  has  demonstrably  paid  should  be  gath- 
ered and  systematically  presented,  to  show  the  advantages  of 
the  cooperative  spirit  and  methods.  Carnegie  said  that,  given 
his  business  methods,  he  could  start  over  again  with  nothing 
and  reacquire  his  fortune.  What  these  methods  were,  we 
should  know  and  teach  and  see  how  far  they  illustrate  or  lack 
this  humaniculture ;  and  where  the  latter,  how  at  each  point 
it  could  be  best  added. 

Employers  should  see  and  admit  their  own  need  of  edu- 
cation, on  the  principle  of  noblesse  oblige,  if  no  other.  Ad- 
vertising is  now  a  department  of  psychology  with  its  own 
literature  and  very  educative  laws  with  great  culture  power 
in  education.  The  same  is  true  of  buying,  selling,  and  bar- 
gaining. The  experts  in  these  lines  should  give  up  their 
secrets.  There  are  the  arts  of  window  display.  Experts  here 
and  there  should  devote  themselves  to  exposition.  The  de- 
vices and  experiences  of  drummers,  who  are  often  the  very 
ablest  and  shrewdest  business  men  who  have  perhaps  been 
small  or  more  often  are  to  be  great  proprietors,  should  be 
gathered.  The  modes  of  accounting  in  banks  and  the  devices 
used  by  clerks  in  addition,  multiplication,  computing  interest, 
etc.,  should  l>e  taught  and  practiced  in  business  schools,  hot 
from  the  great  firms,  each  in  its  proper  place  and  grade ;  and 
so  should  concrete  cases  where  experiments  in  profit-sharing 
have  contributed  experimental  data.  All  these  fields  are  rich 
in  resources  to  the  cleverly  conducted  questionnaire  method 
in  both  its  written  and  oral  form.  The  same  is  true  of  mo<lcs 
of  .selling  products  in  foreign  lands,  where  other  languages 
are  spoken  and  other  fashions  and  perhaps  needs  in  the  tex- 
ture and  coloring  of  articles  prevail.  Packing,  too.  is  often 
a  fine  art  that  would  repay  expert  colligation  and  utilization. 
How  consular  and  other  reports  are  prepared  and  how  mcth- 


634  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

ods  of  doing  this  can  be  improved,  brought  up  to  date,  and 
made  more  valuable,  is  another  theme.  Tariff  schedules  for 
each  article  and  how  bills  are  prepared,  class  legislation  carried 
through,  and  even  detailed  modes  and  instances  of  corruption, 
the  principle  and  methods  of  trusts,  the  histories  of  great  cor- 
porations, etc.,  should  be  taught  with  scientific  and  academic 
truthfulness.  Rockefeller  should  contribute  an  accurate  ac- 
count of  his  methods  of  bookkeeping.  All  these  things  should 
be  given  to  enrich  courses  and  bring  the  higher  dispensation 
of  business  education,  which  now  is  diluted,  superficial,  and 
remote  from  vital,  practical  affairs  and  has  hardly  begun  to  do 
what  it  should  and  might.  Again,  every  business  man  in  the 
community  should  be  laid  under  tribute  to  appear  in  person 
before  classes  and  tell  his  experiences  and  his  problems  in  a 
confidential  way,  reserving  nothing  which  could  be  a  great 
service  to  the  young  who  have  a  preemptive  right  to  all  he  can 
communicate  that  could  have  a  stimulating  and  educative  value. 
It  is  not  alone  the  private  needs  of  his  own  concern  in  the 
way  of  this  or  that  specific  quality  of  knowledge  or  skill  that 
pedagogy  needs,  but  also  to  know  things  which  occupy  his 
own  most  serious  and  strenuous  hours.  This  in  the  larger 
interests  of  the  future,  he  should  confide  to  the  rising  genera- 
tion. Thus  he  will  himself  taste  some  of  the  rewards  that 
go  to  the  true  teacher,  and  will  be  all  the  stronger  for  the  rev- 
elation, in  his  own  work. 

The  entire  industrial  life  of  the  nation  is  now  more  or  less 
imperiled,  so  that  industrial  education  is  now  imperative  to 
maintain  and  advance  our  present  position,  if  not  indeed  to 
prevent  early  decline.  Present  conditions  of  life  in  the  great 
factory  centers  throughout  the  world  are  bad.  This  was 
strongly  brought  out  some  years  ago  by  Arthur  Shadwell.^ 
In  our  country  commercial  push,  individual  enterprise,  leader- 
ship, have  so  far  won  our  great  successes.  Free  trade  is  to 
buy  cheap  and  takes  no  thought  of  the  selling  price ;  while  pro- 
tection is  to  sell  dear.  Success  does  not  depend  upon  either  of 
these,  but  on  the  relations  of  the  two  to  each  other.  A  pro- 
tective tariff  is  a  tax  paid  by  the  home  community  to  insure 
the  producer  a  remunerative  price.     It  stimulates  like  a  hot- 

1  Industrial  Efficiency.     London,  Longmans,  1906.     2  v. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  635 

house  and  sometimes  enables  companies  to  sell  their  surplus 
abroad  at  a  very  low  rate.  This  is  called  "  dumping."  It  is 
command  of  the  home  markets  thus  insured  that  enables  pro- 
ducers to  make  combinations,  control  prices,  and  manipulate 
the  markets,  which  they  could  not  do  were  they  open  to  all 
competitors.  Labor  is  paid  more  and  produces  less  than 
it  did. 

In  England,  according  to  Shadwell,  "  work  is  a  nuisance,  an  evil 
necessity,  to  be  shirked  and  hurried  over  as  quickly  and  easily  as 
possible  to  get  to  the  real  business  of  life"  which,  as  he  goes  on  to 
say,  is  sports:  racing,  cricket,  the  public  house,  pleasure,  and  self- 
indulgence.  In  winding  electric  coils,  the  rate  became  slower  and 
slower  until  a  single  coil  took  ninety  minutes ;  then  girls  were  put 
on  "  and  did  more  before  breakfast  than  the  men  did  all  day."  Such 
leave  school  with  no  thought  of  duty  and  no  sense  that  the  position 
of  the  country  was  won  by  the  hardship  and  toil  of  generations. 
Workers  level  down  and  not  up.  They  would  drag  the  industrious 
and  energetic  to  the  standards  of  the  shirks  and  loafers.  "  Labor 
is  paid  more  and  produces  less  than  it  did,  till  now  wages  have  risen 
beyond  productivity."  The  workmen's  idea  of  life  is  holidays. 
They  do  not  use  their  high  wages  well.  Instead  of  spending  it  for 
homes  and  saving  it,  it  goes  for  drink,  pleasure,  and  perhaps  gam- 
bling. The  laborers  now  travel  at  a  price  that  does  not  pay  the 
companies;  but  they  demand  transportation  free.  Some  think  the 
state  should  feed  the  children  of  the  poor.  Politicians  promise  any- 
thing if  at  some  one  else's  expense,  and  whatever  a  laborer  asks  is 
given  him  like  a  spoiled  child,  whether  it  is  good  for  him  or  not; 
this  is  the  rule  of  the  nursery  where  children  govern  men.  Work- 
men are  ceasing  to  save;  their  very  amusements  are  childish,  and 
the  pauper  spirit  of  dependence  is  growing,  as  the  glory  and  honor 
of  parenthood  is  shirked.  A  Russian  writer  says  that  during  the  last 
thirty  years  the  English  people  have  become  mentally,  morally,  and 
physically  rotten  to  the  core.  "  The  Russians  would  consider  the 
condition  of  the  poorest  laborer  in  England  luxurious."  Pohticians 
rarely  tell  tluni  that  their  troubles  are  due  to  themselves,  but  indicate 
that  they  can  be  removed  by  an  act  of  Parliament.  One  experienced 
workman  advocated  a  judicious  system  of  universal  military  service 
and  thinks  that  this  discipline  would  confer  more  real  benefit  on 
the  laborer  than  a  raise  of  thirty  per  cent  in  wages.  There  is  very 
little  of  the  splendid  Japanese  spirit  of  devotion  to  the  public  good. 
"  A  man  who  earns  ten  <lollars  a  week  and  spends  half  of  it  on  self- 
indulgence  is  demoralized  by  wealth  no  less  than  lloggenheimer  the 
millionaire."  A  certain  business  needs  very  strong,  well-paid  men 
with  a  skill  that  can  be  acquired  in  a  few  weeks;  so  they  import 
Irish  youth  from  Donegal;  they  come  sober,  but  in  a  few  weeks  are 
the  liartlest  drinkers  of  the  neighborhood,  destitute  at  the  end  of  the 


636  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

week  and  clamorous  for  more  wages.  We  identify  progress  with 
the  gospel  of  ease.  Hard  work  we  deem  an  evil,  discipline  degrad- 
ing, sacrifice  monstrous,  and  suffering  intolerable,  and  duty  obsolete. 
Who  ever  gave  a  pipe,  a  glass  of  beer,  or  a  new  hat,  or  a  ticket  to 
the  theater  during  the  recent  hard  times?  One  writer  estimates  that 
four  fifths  of  those  who  inherit  wealth  lead  idle  lives,  and  their 
follies  and  vulgar  extravagances  set  bad  examples.  The  hoard  of 
shirkers  and  wastrels  which  the  ease  theory  has  created  and  the 
pressure  of  the  unemployed  are  evils  that  are  now  beginning  to  be 
realized.  This  view  of  English  conditions  may  be  extreme,  but  there 
is  much  in  it  from  which  we  should  profit  in  this  country.  In 
Germany  the  workman  has  not  at  all  been  left  to  work  out  his  own 
destiny,  but  has  been  guided  and  helped  at  every  step  by  individuals, 
departments,  cities,  and  by  the  state.  There  are  factory  codes,  a 
scientific  tariff,  state  insurance,  organization  of  transports,  merchant 
marine,  education,  poor  law — everything  on  a  high  level,  so  that 
recovery  from  depression  is  rapid.  Small  as  is  the  wage,  a  workman 
"  can  be  strong,  happy,  and  healthy,  and  behave  like  a  gentleman  on 
what  he  gets." 

In  America  we  have  trusted  to  audacity,  push,  novelty, 
inventiveness,  rivalry,  cupidity,  managerial  control,  excessive 
specialization,  so  that  if  a  workman  is  smoothing  a  bit  of 
ivory  on  one  side,  it  is  turned  by  machinery  for  the  next  man 
to  smooth  on  the  other.  We  screw  up  everything  that  is 
slack,  and  do  all  in  our  power  to  increase  the  output,  relying 
chiefly  upon  the  abundance  of  our  raw  material  and  upon  our 
high  tariff.  Kreuzenpointner  ^  thinks  that  without  industrial 
training  America  cannot  keep  its  present  position  more  than 
twenty  years  because  of  tightening  economic  conditions,  the 
decline  in  the  quality  and  quantity  of  resources,  and  increas- 
ing population.  The  commission  of  six  educators  which  Ger- 
many sent  here  in  1909  reported  that  it  would  be  many  years 
before  American  industrial  education  would  approach  the  ef- 
ficiency of  theirs.  It  will  probably  take  twenty  years  for  the 
masses  of  the  people  in  America  to  reach  the  degree  of  in- 
telligence and  philosophic  thought  necessary  to  do  what 
should  be  done  now.  "  Thus  we  must  make  a  new  genera- 
tion to  develop  the  mental  power  of  grasping  the  breadth  and 
depth  of  this  problem."  Our  habits  are  wasteful.  The  for- 
eigner can  work  under  pinched  conditions  and  tighten  his  belt. 

*  American  Machinist,  May  20,  1909. 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  637 

He  does  not  demand  two  kinds  of  pie  in  his  dinner  pail,  nor 
would  brown  bread  in  it  condemn  him  to  the  level  of  the 
Dago  or  Slovak.  Some  time  we  have  got  to  face  the  com- 
petition, e.  g.,  of  the  highly  skilled  Belgian  mechanic  in  blue 
blouse  and  wooden  shoes,  living  on  sour  milk,  peas,  lentils, 
and  perhaps  a  little  meat  on  Sunday.  And  then  there  is  the 
Yellow  Peril  now  looming  up  ominously  in  the  distance.  "  If 
we  had  the  use  of  five  hundred  million  dollars  and  could  train 
a  hundred  thousand  teachers  in  a  week,  we  should  still  be 
handicapped  by  the  retarding  condition  of  our  schools,  and 
especially  the  unfriendliness  of  the  high  schools  toward  it." 
Our  decline  in  certain  respects  has  already  set  in :  during  the 
last  five  years  Germany  has  doubled  her  sale  of  machinery  to 
this  country,  and  Belgium  has  trebled  it;  although  we  think 
ourselves  the  greatest  machine  builders  in  the  world.  An 
American  agent  went  to  Mexico  to  sell  goods,  stayed  a  week 
and  sold  nothing.  A  German  agent  then  came  along  speaking 
the  language,  knowing  the  money  and  trade  relations,  loafed 
about  and  studied  one  week,  and  the  second  week  sold  ten 
thousand  dollars'  worth  of  goods  in  the  same  line.  F.  J.  Mil- 
ler, editor  of  the  American  Machmist,  thinks  German  work- 
men technically  overtrained  and  prone  to  depend  too  much 
on  what  they  have  learned  in  school ;  they  cannot  think  in- 
dependently, and  their  shop  experience  is  not  sufficiently  em- 
phasized. Vanderlip  says  that  our  preeminence  now  rests 
solely  upon  cheap  raw  material,  genius  for  invention  and  com- 
bination, and  cheapness  of  production,  but  not  on  the  quality 
of  goods.  Industrial  centers  as  a  rule  are  gloomy,  sordid, 
unwholesome,  and  utterly  unfit  for  children,  whose  primary 
right  is  air,  light,  exercise,  joy,  food.  Thus  industrial  edu- 
cation has  a  great  national  problem  to  solve.  Why  should 
it  not  clear  our  way  in  Porto  Rico  and  the  Philippines? 

What  are  the  plain,  cold,  sun-clear  facts?  They  are  these: 
Never  in  all  history  did  such  a  vast  and  varied  wealth  oi)en 
to  mankind  as  in  the  natural  resources  which  the  white  race 
found  as  it  advanced  across  this  country.  The  soil  was  rich ; 
the  prairies  teemed  with  harvests  without  fertilization ;  the 
forests  were  wide  and  dense;  the  mines  rich  and  varied,  and 
there  was  natural  gas  and  oil  in  abundance.  Immigrants 
flocked  to  our  shores.     Everyone  worked  hard,  and  wealth 


638  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

has  been  accumulated  by  leaps  and  bounds  and  our  prosperity 
has  been  almost  unprecedented.  Power  and  raw  material 
have  been  abundant;  our  home  markets  vast,  and  stimulated 
by  a  high  and  growing  protective  tariff.  Now,  however,  all 
this  is  rapidly  changing  for  the  worse.  As  the  Convention 
of  Governors  in  May,  1908,  declared,  "  Our  very  civilization 
depends  upon  the  conservation  of  our  natural  resources."  Of 
the  three  million  square  miles  of  mainland,  only  one  fifth  is 
cultivated,  and  by  a  trifle  over  one  third  of  the  population. 
Prodigious  as  are  our  crops  (one  third  of  the  corn,  two  fifths 
of  the  wheat,  two  thirds  of  the  cotton  of  the  world),  the  yield 
per  acre  of  grain  at  the  last  census  was  11.38  bushels  (about 
one  third  the  best  Belgium  amount),  or  not  far  above  a  good 
rental  where  cultivation  is  up  to  a  high  standard.  Mammal 
pests  destroy  $100,000,000  worth  annually,  and  insects  about 
six  times  that  amount,  and  most  of  this  loss  is  preventable. 
Brewers  take  about  50,000,000  bushels  of  grain  per  year. 
We  use  100,000,000,000  board  feet  of  lumber  annually,  which 
will  consume  all  our  timber  in  about  twenty  years.  At  present 
we  use  up  about  forty-five  square  miles  of  our  forests  per 
day.  One  computation  makes  500  feet  per  inhabitant,  as 
against  60  in  Europe.  Forest  fires,  preventable  at  one  fifth 
the  wastage  they  cause,  are  responsible  for  about  100,000,000 
feet  annually.  We  are  so  wasteful  that  of  every  1,000  feet 
of  lumber  only  about  320  are  actually  used.  Roosevelt  called 
the  forest  question  *'  in  many  respects  the  very  most  vital  in- 
ternal problem  for  our  people  to-day."  Deforestation  means 
drought  and  desert  and  loss  of  the  soil,  and  as  about  fifty-nine 
per  cent  of  our  buildings  are  wood,  it  would  also  mean  great 
dearth  of  habitation.  Both  gas  and  petroleum  will  fail  us 
about  1950.  At  the  present  rate  of  increase,  our  anthracite 
coal  will  be  all  gone  in  seventy  years,  while  our  bituminous 
will  last  on  about  seven  hundred  years.  ^  Here  our  chief  waste 
is  in  processes  for  utilizing  the  energy  of  these  heat-producing 
agencies.  Carnegie  thinks  that  in  forty  years  all  our  large 
deposits  of  high-grade  iron  ore  will  be  worked  out  in  this 
age  of  steel.     Copper  has  already  begun  to  be  exhausted,  and 

•  *  Many  of  the  above  facts  have  been  compiled  by  Professor  M.  G.  Bogert. 
Journal  of  American  Chemical  Society,  February,  1909. 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  639 

that,  too,  just  at  the  dawn  of  an  age  of  electricity  for  which 
it  now  seems  indispensable.  Again,  our  immigrants  were  once 
from  Great  Britain,  Germany,  Norway,  Sweden,  and  Swit- 
zerland. They  were  ambitious,  industrious,  skillful.  Now 
Southern  Europe  sends  hordes  of  unskilled  and  untrained 
Latins  and  Slavs,  and  those  who  come  here  grow  infertile 
almost  in  direct  proportion  to  the  time  they  have  been  here 
and  as  they  grow  in  intelligence  and  effectiveness.  Unskilled 
labor  has  grown  shirky  in  the  same  ratio  as  it  has  grown 
high-priced,  till  in  some  parts  of  the  country  all  progress  and 
prosperity  are  seriously  handicapped.  In  the  foreign  markets 
we  are  already  beaten  on  many  lines  and  are  steadily  falling 
behind  European  lands. 

Under  these  conditions  it  is  no  wonder  that  industrial 
leaders,  who  in  this  country  chiefly  shape  our  affairs,  are  ask- 
ing, "  How  can  we  make  our  school  system,  upon  which  we 
spend  more  money  than  any  other  people,  fit  the  children  for 
their  life-work  and  furnish  our  industries,  which  are  the  ulti- 
mate source  of  our  national  prosperity,  and  even  existence, 
with  the  army  of  skilled  and  willing  workers  they  need  ?  " 
Our  schools  were  created  to  fit  simpler  conditions  when  the 
home  was  the  center  of  industry,  which  is  now  passing  to  the 
factories,  and  before  science  had  become  vital  to  manufacture. 
Now,  practical  life  has  drifted  away  from  the  school  and  left 
it  isolated  and  unresponsive  to  the  needs  of  the  time.  Busi- 
ness men,  says  E.  A.  Rumley,  must  come  to  the  rescue  at  this 
crisis  and  give  education  a  new  impulse.  The  problems  here 
are  of  international  dimensions,  and  we  are  probably  on  the 
eve  of  an  educational  awakening  such  as  history  has  not  yet 
seen.  The  time  is  at  hand  when  we  can  no  longer  depend 
upon  the  abundance  of  our  natural  resources,  but  must  put 
a  larger  portion  of  brain  into  brawn.  We  must  have  econ- 
omy and  men  who  have  been  trained  from  childhood  to  feel 
interest  and  pleasure  in  their  work  and  who  give  a  full  day's 
work  for  a  full  day's  pay. 

The  other  great  nations  utilize  their  physical  sciences  as 
the  intelligence  department  of  industry,  Germany  leading  par- 
tiailarly  in  applied  chemistry  and  physics.  About  all  manu- 
facturing processes  that  transform  raw  material  to  finished 
products,  on  which  future  supremacy  must  depend,  rest  more 


640  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

and  more  upon  science  and  the  progressive  economic  utiliza- 
tion of  waste  products  which  we  squander.  Of  the  total 
rainfall  in  this  country,  estimated  at  about  ten  Mississippis, 
eighty-five  to  ninety-five  per  cent  is  wasted  in  floods  and 
freshets  washing  a .  billion  dollars'  worth  of  the  soil  into 
stream  beds  and  the  sea,  and  which  in  1900  did  damage  cal- 
culated at  $238,000,000,  a  large  part  of  which  was  really 
unnecessary.  Our  inland  and  coastal  waters  are  more  and 
more  polluted,  and  water  power,  upon  which  electricity  de- 
pends, declines  with  the  forests. 

We  waste  human  material.  That  our  pure-food  and  pure- 
drink  and  other  hygienic  laws  are  not  enforced  is  notorious ; 
nor  is  child-labor  legislation,  which  is  so  economic  of  human- 
ity. It  is  said  that  in  no  state  or  city  of  this  Union  is  legal 
provision  made  for  the  rest  of  working  women  approaching 
or  after  confinement,  which  is  so  necessary  for  the  welfare 
of  their  offspring.  The  insurance  against  sickness  is  hardly 
begun  and  old-age  pensions  are  really  but  iridescent  deside- 
rata, while  the  slaughter  and  maiming  of  thousands  of  work- 
men by  accident  which  might  be  prevented  is  appalling. 
Moral  sanitation,  too,  lags  and  loiters.  A  nation  that  has  so 
unprecedently  lost  its  sympathetic  touch  with  childhood,  as 
I  have  elsewhere  shown  that  we  have  done,  has  in  so  doing, 
of  course,  necessarily  lost  vital  contact  with  the  future  in 
which  our  children  are  to  live.  No  race  probably  was  ever 
so  unmindful  of  posterity.  We  are  so  content  with  happy- 
go-lucky  ways,  so  in  love  with  laissez  faire,  so  implicitly  trust- 
ful of  destiny  and  so  convinced  that  the  voice  of  the  average 
man  is  the  voice  of  God,  so  sure  that  everything  will  go 
boomingly  on  with  an  ever-accelerating  rate  of  progress,  that, 
enervated  as  we  are  by  our  prosperity  and  inflated  with  our 
sense  of  greatness,  it  is  hard  for  us  to  grasp  the  great  prob- 
lems that  confront  us.  We  are  sunk  in  the  present,  proud  of 
the  fact  that  we  are  in  a  sense  a  fiat  nation  with  only  a  rudi- 
mentary historical  sense.  We  have  no  time  to  think  how  we 
shall  look  as  ancestors  to  our  successors  a  century  hence,  or 
what  kind  of  social,  industrial,  moral,  to  say  nothing  of  bio- 
logical, heredity  we  may  be  handing  on  to  them. 

We  must  add  to  the  vast  wastage  of  human  culture  avoida- 
ble friction  between  capital  and  labor  and  the  loss  of  sympathy 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  641 

where  a  community  of  interests  should  make  for  unity  and  soli- 
darity. Unrestricted  competition  dumps  men  and  women  in  the 
scrap  heap  the  moment  fresher  and  more  remunerative  recruits 
can  be  found  to  take  their  place.  The  greater  the  corporation 
or  trust,  the  more  soulless,  impersonal,  and  irresponsible  it  be- 
comes, and  this  is  the  land  and  age  of  great  trusts  to  whom 
everything  seems  allowable  that  would  increase  dividends  year 
by  year.  The  adventurous,  not  to  say  gambling,  spirit  is  in 
the  very  atmosphere  that  risks  and  takes  chances  to  the  limit, 
small  if  not  large,  provided  there  is  possibility  of  golden  real- 
ization, ever  so  faint  though  it  be.  Everywhere  this  tendency 
is  helped  on  by  promoters  and  all  the  seductive  psychological 
arts  of  advertising,  till  most  of  the  best  of  our  common  peo- 
ple take  hazards  with  fortune  with  at  least  a  margin  of  their 
resources.  Since  the  depression  a  few  years  ago,  even  we 
teachers,  scanty  though  our  means  be,  are  flooded  with  allur- 
ing prospectuses  of  new  and  old  business  ventures  and  get- 
rich-quick  schemes  in  which  we  are  importuned  to  embark. 
I  have  a  pile  of  these  a  foot  high  when  opened  flat  that  have 
accumulated  within  a  few  months,  and  our  leisure  and  our 
homes  are  often  invaded  by  plausible  and  often  quite  impres- 
sive strangers  who  would  sell  or  even  give  us  shares  of  stock 
specially  designed  to  yield  large  and  sure  returns  to  the 
meager  savings  of  people  engaged  in  our  noble  but  poorly 
paid  vocation.  These  itinerant  and  insistent  peddlers  of  se- 
curities, gentlemanly  though  they  be,  sometimes  have  to  be 
excluded  from  our  academic  halls  and  buildings.  The  arts  of 
the  able  army  of  drummers  are  often  too  much  for  retailers, 
who  are  induced  to  overbuy  and  then  in  turn  crowd  their 
wares  upon  their  customers.  Our  selling  agencies  are  so 
effective  that  who  does  not  know  women  who  are  unable  to 
resist  the  blandishments  of  clerks  or  the  temptations  to  buy 
or  the  intoxication  of  the  shop  window  and  the  bargain  coun- 
ter and  mark-down  sales.  In  some  cases  they  fill  home,  cU)s- 
ets,  and  liedrooms  with  an  accumulation  of  things  purchased, 
piled,  unused  and  unopened,  and  sometimes  forgotten,  so  fas- 
cinating is  its  very  fancy  of  cheapness  and  so  exciting  to 
artificial  wants  not  based  on  needs. 

Again,  in  our  advocacy  of  peace  and  arbitration  we  should 
not  forget  the  advantages  of  military  education  and  what  the 
43 


642  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

world  owes  to  war.  It  has  slaughtered  millions  of  the  best, 
strongest,  and  most  patriotic,  and  left  the  feeble  at  home  to 
propagate  the  race.  It  has  also  promoted  robust  physical 
and  moral  training,  and  is  so  rapidly  improving  that  many 
thoughtful  men  have  urged  that  its  benefits  should  now  be 
extended.  H.  Birchenough^  advocates  that  military  training  be 
made  compulsory  for  every  active  British  lad  from  about  fif- 
teen to  nineteen,  as  a  kind  of  continuation  school,  not  primarily 
to  make  the  country  more  efficient  in  war,  but  for  its  moral 
and  practical  value  for  physical  betterment  and  the  increase 
of  industrial  efficiency.  In  Germany,  as  all  know,  the  attain- 
ment of  a  certificate  as  Einjdhriger,  or  one  year  volunteer 
which  is  granted  to  those  who  attain  Obersecunda  in  a  first- 
class  gymnasium,  or  Realschule,  at  seventeen  or  eighteen,  or 
a  higher  grade  in  other  schools,  stimulates  thousands  of  Ger- 
man youth  to  stay  at  school  up  to  this  point,  as  otherwise 
they  would  have  to  serve  two  years  in  the  infantry  and  three 
in  the  cavalry  or  four  in  the  navy.  This  stage  confers  con- 
siderable social  distinction.  The  volunteer  must  board  him- 
self, supply  his  uniform,  and  very  likely  lives  at  home  most 
of  the  time  except  six  weeks.  He  can  choose  his  own  year 
from  eighteen  to  twenty-three — under  certain  conditions  to 
twenty-six.  This,  of  course,  means  a  certain  standard  of 
ability  and  training,  and  employers  have  come  to  attach  great 
value  to  this.  Moreover,  all  who  serve  this  one  or  who  take  the 
otherwise  required  two  years,  although  they  interrupt  their 
careers  (and  many  have  come  to  our  shores  in  the  past  to 
escape  this  obligation),  are  now  more  and  more  thought  to 
be  benefited  by  it,  on  the  whole,  as  is  the  country  at  large. 
The  military  service  is  a  kind  of  liberal  education  for  youth 
in  the  humbler  walks  of  life.  It  gives  much  advantage  of 
travel  and  association,  and,  better  yet,  young  men  learn  the 
benefits  of  discipline,  duty,  regularity,  plain  living,  habits  of 
hard  work,  neatness,  obedience  to  authority,  a  sense  of  honor, 
love  of  the  fatherland,  better  ideas  of  hygiene.  It  is,  on  the 
whole,  a  splendid  setting-up  drill,  and  those  who  have  had  it 
emerge  from  this  barrack  life  almost  always  better  in  health 


*  Birchenough,  H. :  Compulsory  Education  and  Compulsory  Military  Training. 
Nineteenth  Century,  1904.     Vol.  56,  pp.  20-27. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  643 

and  morale,  with  larger  intellectual  interests,  with  a  quick- 
ened sense  of  loyalty  and  devotion  to  the  country.  The  recent 
reforms  in  the  army  and  the  new  responsibilities  which  officers 
take  for  their  men  and  the  moral  instruction  they  give,  I  have 
pointed  out  in  Chapter  IV.  It  should  be  added  that  a  knowl- 
edge of  military  affairs  is  a  vast  culture  domain  of  its  own. 
One  needs  only  glance  through  a  military  encyclopedia  or  turn 
the  leaves  of  such  serious  studies  as  Poten,^  Tardieu,-  S.  R. 
Steinmetz,^  or  study  Nietzsche  to  realize  the  advantages  of 
the  aggressive  soldierly  spirit  and  attitude.  To  be  chosen  by 
the  state,  taken  away  from  the  home  environment,  and  made 
to  serve  the  fatherland  with  a  possibility  of  offering  up  life 
upon  one's  country's  altar  gives  seriousness,  poise,  and  right 
orientation,  implants  not  only  love  of  the  flag,  but  esprit  de 
corps  and  regimentation.  It  abolishes  rank  and  social  sta- 
tion, and  brings  a  spirit  of  comradeship,  a  feeling  of  good 
fellowship  that  may  persist  through  life,  and  it  is  believed 
that  now  the  army  is  rapidly  becoming  in  all  civilized  lands 
a  more  effective  school  for  personal  virtue  than  ever  before. 
It  brings,  too,  its  own  peculiar  sense  of  honor. 

Here,  too,  should  be  mentioned  the  suggestion  made  by 
Carlyle,  Kingsley,  and  more  elaborated  by  Ruskin,  and  now 
by  adherents  of  the  Peace  Movement,  that  great  advantages 
could  be  secured  by  drafting  or  enlisting,  or  even,  in  some 
cases,  requiring,  criminals  for  a  term  of  years  to  engage  in 
great  public  works  for  the  public  good.  This  they  thought 
a  moral  equivalent  of  war.  Militant  Christianity  has  long 
praised  and  besung  the  virtues  of  the  Christian  soldier  whose 
aggressiveness  is  moral  and  directed  against  sin.  But  the  same 
spirit  could  be  given  a  more  definite  direction  should  our  Gov- 
ernment open  conscription  offices  and  enroll  young  men  to 
dredge  in  rivers  and  harbors  and  at  Panama,  to  sc^ve  the  state 
or  community  in  all  the  great  industrial  enterprises  of  state 
or  city,  to  clean  streets  and  sewers,  to  build  irrigation  dams 

•  Poten,  B.:  Geschichte  dcs  Milit&r-erziehungs-  und  Bildungswcscns  in  den 
Landen  deutscher  Zunge.  Monumenta  Germanise  Pacdagogica,  Vols,  i,  2,  3,  S 
and  15. 

*  Tardieu,  Eugene:  Notions  dc  Psychologic  et  leurs  applications  k  I'^ucation 
militaire.     Bruxellcs.     1898  p. 

'Pie  Philosophic  dcs  Kriegs.    Leipzig,  Barth,  1907.    352  p. 


644  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

and  systems,  to  work  in  squads  and  under  command  for  a 
definite  term,  with  desertion  penalized  and  duties  enforced  by 
military  methods.  Why  could  not  the  same  beneficent  results 
be  accomplished  as  by  training  for  war?  The  morale  of  our 
soldiers  whom  Roosevelt  made  to  dig  is  said  to  have  been 
greatly  improved  thereby,  and  this  experience  made  them 
better  soldiers.  All  this  work  must  not  be  tainted  by  the 
spirit  of  the  chain  gang,  and  seems  at  first  hardly  compatible 
with  the  spirit  of  free  institutions,  for  it  would  deprive  men 
of  the  full  recompense  for  their  toil,  and  would  have  some 
taints  or  traits  of  slavery  about  it  which  it  would  take  gen- 
erations to  remove.  To  educate  public  sentiment  so  as  to 
make  it  as  honorable  to  dredge  as  to  maneuver  and  parade 
is  a  gigantic  task,  especially  if  this  work  began  with  wastrels 
at  the  bottom  of  the  social  and  industrial  scale.  It  would  be 
long  indeed  before  free-born  voters  could  give  their  consent 
to  be  made  to  work  for  their  country's  or  their  own  good. 
If  the  idealists,  philosophers,  and  sociologists  who  advocate 
such  plans  would  shoulder  the  pick  and  shovel  and  lead  the 
way,  demonstrating  in  themselves,  as  well  they  perhaps  might, 
the  benefits  of  such  a  course,  this  might  give  it  a  certain 
initial  momentum.  If  the  Government. could  properly  support 
and  pay  a  great  industrial  army  as  its  employees,  sure  of  per- 
manent jobs,  always  under  orders  to  go  wherever  or  do  what- 
ever was  required,  and  also  ready  to  take  up  arms  and  fight 
in  case  of  war,  but  trained  to  do  this  only  incidentally,  that 
might  indeed  be  a  boon.  This,  however,  would  require  a 
rather  elaborate  scheme  of  industrial  education  as  well  as  hos- 
pitals, provision  for  the  aged,  infirm,  and  those  accidentally 
injured,  for  wives  and  children,  and  perhaps,  if  the  Govern- 
ment assumes  control  of  public  resources  and  of  all  public  util- 
ity and  service,  corporations,  railroads,  telephones,  telegraphs, 
public  lands,  something  like  this  may  eventually  be  feasible. 
Such  an  army  would  make  for  peace  rather  than  war,  as  in- 
dustry does,  for  work  would  predominate.  It  might  tend  to 
bring  the  Government  down  to  more  economic  business  meth- 
ods, but  we  are  as  yet  far  from  knowing  how  to  conduct  our 
public  afifairs  as  economically  as  those  controlled  by  private 
enterprises.  Until  a  city  or  state  has  learned  to  do  its  busi- 
ness as  effectively  as  private  concerns,  such  a  dream  as  this 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  645 

would  not  be  capable  of  realization.  To  increase  the  num- 
ber of  officeholders,  or  of  those  who  live 'and  work  for  the 
state,  would  also  mean  to  implant  in  our  schools  the  spirit 
now  deprecated  in  France,  whose  youth  are  often  criticised 
as  ambitious  chiefly  to  get  a  place  and  salary  and  a  badge 
or  uniform  in  the  service  of  the  state.  At  present,  speculation 
in  these  directions  may  be  safely  left  to  those  who  cultivate 
the  191 5,  1925,  2000  movements.  They  are  interesting,  but 
are  not  without  some  tendency  to  divert  attention  from  the 
duty  of  the  present  hour  which  focuses  on  the  next  step,  which 
certainly  seems  to  be  now  to  give  a  more  industrial  trend  to 
our  entire  educational  system  and  await  results. 

Commercial  education  in  this  country  began  with  the 
Bryant  and  Stratton  chain  of  business  colleges  about  the  mid- 
dle of  the  last  century,  and  was  greatly  advanced  by  the 
career  of  S.  S.  Packard,  who  devoted  more  than  forty  years 
to  this  work.^  These  were  private,  popular,  often  charged 
a  high  fee,  and  trained  clerks  and  amanuenses.  When  stenog- 
raphy and  typewriting  came  in,  they  were  quick  to  discern 
their  value,  and  added  them  and  prolonged  their  course. 
C.  B.  Ellis  ^  says  they  came  in  as  a  protest  against  school 
systems  that  did  not  train  for  life  and  their  inability  to  hold 
boys,  and  to  give  those  not  going  on  a  chance.  Some  of  these 
were  very  successful,  such  as  the  Heffley  School  of  Commerce 
of  Brooklyn,  with  some  twenty-five  instructors;  Long  Island 
Business  College,  with  sixteen;  Albany,  with  twenty-one; 
Woods'  School  of  Business  and  Shorthand,  with  twelve; 
Eastman  Business  College  at  Poughkeepsie,  with  twenty-five; 
and  Rochester  Business  Institution,  w'ith  fifteen,  and  many 
others.  Portions  of  this  work  were  later  introduced  into 
public  and  private  high  schools,  till  in  19CX)  there  were  2.350 

'  See  James,  E.  J.,  Commercial  Education.  In  N.  M.  Butler  cd.,  Education 
in  the  United  States.  Albany,  J.  B.  Lyon.  igoo.  sip.  2  v.  .M.so  Great  Britain. 
Diplomatic  and  Consular  Service.  Report  on  Commercial  Education  in  the  United 
States.  I-ondon,  Harrison,  1899,  55  p.  Also  Supplement  to  Fifth  Year  Book 
of  the  National  Herbart  Society  for  1899.  Commercial  Education,  by  C.  A. 
Herrick.  pp.  113-229.     1900. 

^Ellis,  C.  B.:  Commercial  Education  in  Secondary  Schools.  Education,  1902, 
V.  22,  pp.  631-637.  See  also  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Statistics.  Industrial  Education  and 
Industrial  Conditions  in  Germany.  Illus.  Wash.,  Govt.  Print.,  1905.  ;i2Ti  p. 
(Special  consular  repts..  v.  j^^.) 


646  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

institutions  of  all  grades,  with  131,518  students,  71,000  of 
which  were  in  public  high  schools  or  colleges  employing  1,196 
men  and  583  women  as  teachers.  Next  in  frequency  came 
the  private  high  schools,  then  normal  schools.  Bookkeeping 
gave  a  content  to  arithmetic,  and  a  boy  who  could  not  apply 
himself  to  "  sums  "  would  work  hours  to  find  an  error  in  a 
trial  balance  sheet.  Shorthand,  too,  teaches  much  about  lan- 
guage, requires  concentration,  and  keeps  the  pupil  out  of  a 
muddled  state  of  mind ;  while  typography  cultivates  far  more 
than  manual  skill  and  puts  a  premium  upon  neatness,  accuracy, 
and  good  English.  The  work  thus  has  a  high-culture  value. 
It  came  in  under  protest  from  the  culturists,  who  feared  that 
the  school  would  be  "  transformed  into  an  office,  counting- 
room,  or  bank."  Young  Americans  may  lack  native  aptitude 
for  skilled  industries,  but  they  have  great  ability  and  taste  for 
commercial  activities.  These  courses  have  been  more  or  less 
enlarged  and  enriched,  till  now  it  may  be  said  that  business 
education  in  this  country  has  acquired  some  solid  standing. 

In  1881  Joseph  Wharton,  of  Philadelphia,  established  there  a 
school  of  finance  and  economy,  which,  although  it  encountered  many 
obstacles,  was  developed  with  great  energy  and  sagacity  by  Professor 
E.  J.  James,  who  was  sent  to  Europe  to  study  this  department  of 
education,  and  made  a  very  valuable  report,'^  in  which  his  many 
addresses  and  articles  upon  the  subject  are  summed  up.  If  the  Uni- 
versity of  Pennsylvania  would  work  with,  instead  of  opposing,  the 
magnificent  commercial  museum  in  that  city,  the  best  of  its  kind 
in  the  world,  as  it  has  evolved  under  the  leadership  of  W.  P.  Wil- 
son, this  city  might  easily  be  the  leader  and  light  in  this  field.  The 
year  1900  was  significant  in  this  history,  for  it  saw  the  opening  of  de- 
partments of  commercial  education  in  the  Universities  of  Chicago, 
Missouri,  West  Virginia,  Louisiana,  Nevada,  Vermont,  Wisconsin, 
Michigan,  Ohio,  Arizona,  New  York,  Dartmouth  College,  the  Florida, 
Montana,  and  New  Mexico  and  Georgia  Schools  of  Agriculture. 
The  best  of  these  have  valuable  courses  in  diplomacy,  business  or- 
ganization, finance,  insurance,  transportation,  accounts,  advertising, 
city  organization  and  charter,  demography,  public  opinion,  race  con- 
tact, panic  and  depression,  legal  decisions,  economic  history,  trade 
routes,  tariff,  growth  of  water  transportation,  and  many  others.  On 
the  other  hand,  too  many  of  these  courses  are  scissors  and  paste 

1  James,  E.  J.:  The  Education  of  Business  Men;  a  View  of  the  Organization 
and  Courses  of  Study  in  the  Commercial  High  Schools  of  Europe.  Chicago. 
University  Press,  1898.     232  p. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  647 

products,  where  portions  of  history,  political  economy,  modern  lan- 
guages, certain  topics  in  applied  science,  a  course  by  a  law  pro- 
fessor, and  perhaps  one  from  the  agricultural  school  which  had  been 
devised  to  meet  other  needs,  have  been  rudely  whacked  together 
into  a  course  to  attract  students  in  this  field.  The  Tuck  School 
at  Dartmouth,  with  a  fund  of  $300,000,  aided  by  the  Thayer 
School  of  Civil  Engineering,  is  only  open  to  college  seniors  or 
graduates  who  have  attained  a  standard  of  seventy-five  per  cent. 
It  "  boldly  limits  itself  to  picked  men  who  have  completed  at  least 
three  years  of  college  work  and  are  candidates  for  degrees."  It 
includes  economic  and  monetary  theory,  elementary  law,  sociology, 
anthropological  geography,  social  statistics,  correspondence,  public 
speaking,  and  at  least  two  modern  languages.  After  a  year  of  this 
work  it  embraces  financial  problems,  commerce,  insurance,  and  has 
a  faculty  of  ten  men.^  In  1908  Harvard  opened  a  Graduate  School 
of  Business  Administration,  with  seventeen  regular  instructors  and 
aided  by  many  outside  lawyers  and  brokers.  The  Y.  M.  C.  A.  has 
opened  more  elementary  schools. 

Of  course,  Europe  is  fifty  years  ahead  of  us  in  time.  Ad- 
vocates of  this  scheme  claim  that  the  old  idea  of  beginning 
at  the  bottom,  sweeping  the  store  and  running  errands,  is 
superseded,  and  that  business  men  can  now  educate  their  sons 

'  John  VVanamaker  has  a  trade  school  or  commercial  institute  connected  with 
his  department  store  in  Philadelphia  which  has  lately  been  chartered  under  the 
ambitious  title  of  "The  American  University  of  Applied  Commerce  and  Trades." 
The  beginnings  were  made  some  fourteen  years  ago  and  there  are  now  nearly  eight 
thousand  graduates.  The  smaller  boys  have  a  school  session  two  mornings  a  week 
before  they  go  on  duty  at  ten,  and  three  hundred  older  boys  have  two  evening 
sessions  weekly  after  a  hot  supp)er  in  the  store  dining  room.  There  are  twenty- 
four  teachers,  some  of  them  from  the  public  schools.  A  military  battalion  with  a 
garden  for  drill  is  a  lesson  in  obedience,  precision,  and  health;  military  band,  drum 
corps,  and  summer  vacations  sjjent  in  tenting  like  soldiers  on  a  five-acre  camp 
ground  at  Island  Heights,  New  Jersey,  with  headquarters  at  the  barrack  by  the 
sea.  The  girls,  too,  have  miUtary  drill,  drum  and  bugle  corps,  band,  singing, 
mandolin  clubs,  saving  funds,  classes  in  French  and  German  for  those  *ho  have 
to  go  abroad  in  their  business  dealings.  When  these  youths  graduate  with  a 
diploma,  they  arc  full-fledged  members  of  the  staff,  fitted  for  some  well-defined 
division.  There  are  special  class  rooms,  library,  reading  nxim,  gymnasium, 
swimming  pool.  This  system  is  the  pivot  of  the  organization  of  the  store  staff, 
determining  position,  wages,  and  advancement.  The  work  is  said  to  have  grown 
out  of  the  author's  realization  of  the  sacred  obligations  of  employer  to  employee 
and  his  recognition  that  a  business  career  is  now  a  profession  and  a  specialty. 
High  marks  here  have  a  money  value.  We  are  not  told,  however,  how  far  these 
pupils  are  initiated  into  the  general  plan  and  method  of  the  business  as  a  whole. 
This  would  seem  to  be  a  matter  of  vital  importance.  Many  other  firms  have 
introduced  more  or  less  educational  facilities  for  their  employees. 


648  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

with  great  precision  to  take  their  places,  and  the  prejudice 
many  of  them  have  had  against  college  graduates  is  no  doubt 
abating.  A  very  large  and  rapidly  increasing  proportion  of 
college  students  now  intend  to  go  into  business  rather  than 
into  a  profession,  for  the  former  is  not  overcrowded.  Surely 
there  is  no  reason,  as  the  late  C.  K.  Adams  said,  "  why  the 
state  should  provide  means  for  educating  lawyers,  physicians, 
engineers,  pharmacists,  and  agriculturists,  that  would  not 
equally  apply  to  the  education  of  business  men."  Many  new 
lines  call  loudly  for  the  highest  grade  of  business  ability,  and 
on  the  wisdom  with  which  all  this  is  managed  the  happiness 
of  thousands  of  families  depends.  Probably  the  majority  of 
the  talent  of  this  country  is  absorbed  in  these  occupations. 
While  experience  is  important,  there  is  a  vast  body  of  knowl- 
edge here  that  could  be  organized  and  taught  in  schools  with 
great  advantage.  Our  foreign  trade  as  early  as  1890  had 
reached  an  aggregate  of  two  thousand  billion  dollars,  our 
sales  exceeding  our  purchases  by  five  hundred  million.^  We 
demand  a  new  and  rare  class  of  men  to  manage  this,  and  there 
is  great  need  of  foreign  agents  for  American  goods  with  bet- 
ter training.  We  have  found  that  we  can  surpass  other  coun- 
tries in  the  perfection  and  cheapness  of  most  labor-saving 
machines,  in  the  building  and  operation  of  railroads,  con- 
struction of  bridges,  shoes,  steel,  hand-power  tools,  engines, 
mining,  and  much  electrical  machinery.  We  can  give  more 
for  the  money  in  these  lines.  One  cause  of  our  great  success 
is  the  "  freedom  of  commercial  intercourse  between  the  states, 
which  has  furnished  a  tremendous  home  market  and  enabled 
us  to  be  specialists  in  all  these  branches  of  manufacturing  and 
to  turn  out  nearly  everything  in  wholesale  quantities.  These 
cheapening  and  perfecting  processes  are  still  advancing  by 
leaps  and  bounds,  notwithstanding  they  have  already  put  us 
far  in  advance  of  other  nations."  Now  the  question  is,  how 
to  get  the  full  advantages  of  the  world's  market.  We  lack 
trained  men  to  solicit  business.  Our  engineers  are  engaged 
in   great   constructions  the   world   over,   but   we   do   not   fit 

*  See  an  admirable  presentation  with  85  charts.  The  World's  Commerce  and 
Am.  Industry,  by  J.  J.  Macfarlane.  Phil.  Com.  Museum,  1903,  112  p.  See  also 
Commercial  Raw  Materials,  their  Origin,  Preparation  and  Uses,  by  C.  R.  Tooth- 
aJier.     Boston,  Ginn  &  Co.     1907,  108  p.,  with  maps  and  hundreds  of  materials. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION 


649 


youth  to  go,  e.  g.,  to  Mexico  and  South  America  to  explore 
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THE   MONEY   VALUE   OF   TECHNICAL   TRAINING 

(1.     M.    DOCXiE,     MOSELEY    REPOOt) 


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AGES  16      17       18 


19       20       21       22      23      24      25       26       27      28       23 
EACH  VERTICAL  LINE  REPRESENTS  ONE  YEAR. 


30      31      32 


ing  the  language,  resources,  climate,  tastes,  methods,  fitting 
young  men  for  agents  and  for  consuls.    Our  consular  reports 


650  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

cannot  be  compared  with  the  best  in  Europe,  rapidly  as  they 
are  improving.  Our  leading  business  men  wish  their  sons 
educated.  Many  of  them  were  not,  and  have  endowed  col- 
leges and  universities,  realizing  their  own  deficiencies.  The 
colleges  should  repay  this  debt  by  better  interpreting  just  what 
the  sense  of  need  of  their  founders  was  and  meant.  Again, 
it  has  been  said  that  about  ninety-five  per  cent  of  business 
men  have  failed  at  some  time  in  their  career  and  that  the  right 
education  would  tend  to  prevent  this  and  to  make  business  a 
source  of  greater  pleasure  as  well  as  of  profit. 

Here,  as  in  industrial  education,  the  old  prejudice  of  the 
culturists  has  been  both  strong  and  pervasive.  The  sentiment 
of  college  youth  ranks  those  in  the  regular  acad*emic  course 
above  those  in  the  commercial  as  in  the  other  practical  de- 
partments. Even  Professor  Laughlin  ^  says  "  the  essential 
aim  of  the  college  of  commerce  and  of  administration  should 
not  be  technical  but  disciplinary."  He  adds  that  it  should  not 
merely  give  useful  information,  but  principles,  mental  grasp, 
teach  men  to  think,  etc.  Says  another  prominent  educator: 
"  It  is  not  the  business  of  the  commercial  high  school  to  train 
stenographers  or  bookkeepers,  amanuenses  or  private  secre- 
taries, any  more  than  it  is  the  business  of  the  manual  train- 
ing school  to  make  boys  carpenters  or  blacksmiths."  What 
is  wanted  is  broad  foundations.  For  one,  I  believe  that  the 
time  has  come  when  we  must  say  this  is  exactly  wrong  and 
our  ideals  and  methods  of  training  here  must  be  reversed,  that 
we  must  give  first  of  all  deftness  and  skill  of  hand  and  effi- 
cacy in  work,  and  that  on  this  basis  the  whole  intellectual 
structure  can  be  built  both  higher  and  more  securely.  We 
must  reconstruct  our  ideals  of  liberal  culture,  which  is  by  no 
means  limited  to  literature  and  mathematics  and  language. 

One  reason  why  continental  Europe  was  ahead  of  us  in  appre- 
ciating the  need  of  this  training,  if  not  in  making  it  more  effective, 
is  because  of  free  trade,  which  abolished  the  bulwarks  that  pro- 
tected  manufacturers.     Originally   commercial    schools    in    Austria, 

*  Laughlin,  J.  Lawrence:  Higher  Commercial  Education.  Atlantic  Monthly, 
May,  1902.  Vol.  89,  No.  135,  pp.  677-686.  See,  too,  a  valuable  and  extensive 
collection  of  opinions  made  by  R.  T.  Crane  of  Chicago:  Utility  of  all  Kinds  of 
Higher  Schooling  for  Young  Men  who  have  to  earn  their  own  Living.  Pub.  by 
the  author,  1910,  331  p. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  651 

as  Rumbold  says,  were  started  by  wholesale  tradesmen,  both  for 
sons  of  the  higher  classes  and  for  poor  youths,  for  whom  scholar- 
ships were  decreed.  As,  however,  ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  busi- 
ness Jiere  consisted  in  small  dealings,  the  schools  did  not  provide 
for  the  bulk  of  trade  requirements.  The  foundations  were  really 
laid  in  Prague  in  1856,  Vienna  in  1857,  Kratz  in  1854,  while  in  1888 
the  Ministry  of  Public  Instruction  granted  subventions  to  commer- 
cial schools  founded  by  gilds,  corporations,  and  chambers  of  com- 
merce.^ Of  some  sixty  commercial  high  schools  in  the  German 
Empire,  with  nearly  6,000  pupils,  the  support  is  varied  or  divided 
among  cities,  gilds,  states,  while  many  courses  in  Realc  schools 
exist.  It  was  a  great  step  when  for  the  better  class  of  these  schools 
the  government  allowed  the  one  year  military  service.  The  Public 
Commercial  Institute  at  Leipzig,  one  of  the  best  and  oldest,  orig- 
inated in  the  Merchants'  Guild  in  1497,  which  in  1868  became  a 
general  society  under  the  Chamber  of  Commerce.  It  gives  general 
and  special  training  to  apprentices,  and  also  scientific  training  for 
commerce.  Merchants  send  their  sons  here.  Theory  is  rather  prom- 
inent on  the  view  that  it  makes  the  young  learn  more  from  experi- 
ence, and  teaches  them  to  act  with  energy  and  decision  in  new  and 
difficult  situations.  It  is  owing  to  schools  of  this  kind  that  Germany 
has  steadily  diminished  the  many  disadvantages  of  her  position,  and 
that  even  the  trade  of  England  in  its  details  is,  to  an  increasing 
extent,  passing  into  the  hands  of  those  trained  in  Germany  who  have 
settled  in  London,  The  highest  institution  in  this  field  in  Germany, 
called  the  Commercial  University,  was  established  at  Leipzig  in 
April,  1898,  by  business  men  under  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  and 
with  the  approval  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  and  of  the  Aca- 
demic Senate,  and  has  already  done  a  great  service  in  teaching  the 
dignity  of  business  as  a  vocation.  It  is  under  twelve  men  repre- 
senting various  bodies.  It  admits  chiefly  graduates  from  Rcalc 
schools  and  Gymnasia.  Only  by  special  permission  can  a  student 
here  devote  a  portion  of  his  time  to  work  in  the  university.  There 
is  a  seminary  department  for  training  commercial  school-teachers, 
with  a  two  years'  course. 

The  first  institution  of  this  kind  in  Austria  was  opened  in  1770, 
but  had  a  checkered  and  unsuccessful  career.  In  1856  the  Chamber 
of  Trade  and  Commerce  established  a  general  mercantile  institute 
at  Vienna.  Here  the  pupils  regularly  visit  public  collections,  estab- 
lishments, and  are  sent  even  to  the  great  commercial  centers  of  the 
East.  Tuition  is  high  and  it  includes  law,  products,  life  insur- 
ance, electricity,  traffic,  monopolies,  traveling  fellowships,  etc.  This 
Vienna    Commercial    Academy    has   the   largest   attendance    of   any 

•  Sec  Schmitt,  H. :  Die  kaufmannischc  Fortbildungs-Schulcn  Berlins.  Slcgi.s- 
mund,  Berlin,  1891.  Also  F".  Glasscr:  I)a.s  komcrziellc  Bildungs-Wcscn  in  Ocst- 
reich.  Also  Lante:  Ecole  d'Commcrce,  Oudat.  The  Duty  of  the  Merchant.  De- 
vinck :  Commercial  Practice  and  Basis  of  Law.     Guillmalt :  Industrial  Kconomy. 


6S2  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

school  of  its  kind  in  Germany  or  France,  with  twenty-three  pro- 
fessors in  all. 

The  Commercial  Academy  of  Prague  opened  in  1850  in  the 
Polytechnic  Institute,  Bohemia  being  a  land  of  many  trades.  Its 
policy  is  to  receive  boys  before  apprenticeship  rather  than  after 
experience.  It  has  a  good  library,  collection  of  products,  coins,  natu- 
ral history  museum,  etc.,  and  teaches  French,  German,  English,  Ital- 
ian, and  Spanish  correspondence.  The  Vienna  Export  Academy, 
founded  in  1898,  has  weekly  conferences  under  the  chairmanship  of 
the  Minister  of  Commerce,  to  whom  the  teachers  make  weekly  re- 
ports. It  trains  clerks  for  exporting  firms,  it  being  very  hard  for  an 
Austrian  exporter  to  find  markets.  Its  members  visit  typical  export  es- 
tablishments under  guidance,  often  at  distant  places,  and  use  the  Royal 
Commercial  Museum  with  its  maps,  trade  collections,  etc.  The  disci- 
pline is  strict,  and  unexcused  absence  for  eight  days  brings  expulsion. 

The  German  press  has  discussed  at  great  length  the  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  consular  service,  since  it  is  no  longer  an  agricultural 
state  alone,  but  has  colonies.  The  old  system,  represented  by  trained 
lawyers  and  diplomats  without  personal  acquaintance  with  commer- 
cial values  and  mercantile  usages,  was  inadequate.  It  is  proposed 
to  assign  trained  attaches  to  each  important  consulate,  to  abolish 
permanent  consuls,  and  put  in  their  places  experienced  merchants 
who  will  give  the  oifice  a  distinctly  commercial  character  and  leave 
to  the  attaches  the  legal  and  purely  official  duties  now  put  upon  the 
chief.  This  latter  work  must  be  a  life  career,  for  which  the  best 
are  selected  by  competitive  examination.  The  world  will  be  divided 
into  four  or  five  districts,  for  each  of  which  the  pupil  will  be 
educated  according  to  his  choice — e.  g.,  China,  Japan,  the  East 
Indies,  South  America,  the  United  States,  etc.  Each  prepares  for 
and  is  assigned  to  one  of  these  fields,  and  plans  to  spend  his  life 
there.  Hitherto  the  world  has  constituted  but  one  district.  An 
officer  who  began  at  Pekin  might  be  transferred  to  Buenos  Ayres, 
later  to  Odessa,  and  then  to  Palermo,  in  each  of  which  he  would 
lose  the  use  of  languages  and  the  acquaintance  with  persons  and 
conditions.  This  scheme  would  make  consuls  like  subsidized  steamer 
lines  for  pushing  German  trade  throughout  the  world.  Officialism 
will  be  sacrificed  to  pure  utility.^ 

The  beginning  of  commercial  education  in  Japan  was  a  private 
business  school  in  1875  at  Tokyo.  There  are  now  twenty-seven 
public  commercial  schools  turning  out  some  three  hundred  well- 
trained  men  yearly.  These  are  higher,  ordinary,  and  elementary. 
The  first  is  represented  only  by  the  higher  commercial  college  or- 
ganized in  1885  somewhat  after  the  plan  of  that  at  Antwerp,  al- 
though lately  raised  to  a  higher  grade.  The  government  sends  the 
best  of  these  students  abroad,  perhaps  six  at  a  time,  to  different  coun- 
tries, for  studying  different  lines  of  work.    Attached  to  it  is  a  college 

'Mason,  F.  H.:  U.  S.  Con.  Reports,  1888-89, v.  2,  p.  1438. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  653 

of  foreign  languages — Chinese,  Korean,  Russian,  French,  English, 
Spanish,  and  German.  The  faculty  numbers  nearly  a  score.  The 
idea  throughout  is  practical.  Interpreters  are  trained.  Teachers 
act  as  judges  and  pupils  as  plaintiffs  and  defendants.  Western 
business  ways  are  practiced — e.  g.,  a  bank  is  in  one  corner,  a  side 
room  is  a  customs  house,  with  clerks  running  to  and  fro  with  bills 
of  lading,  getting  them  accepted,  selling  to  brokers.  Commercial 
morality  is  a  prominent  topic  here,  including  an  outline  of  modern 
ethical  science,  the  nature  of  ethics  in  business,  the  mode  of  form- 
ing virtuous  habits  in  trade.  No  other  commercial  school  has  such 
a  department,  and  it  has  been  much  criticised,  and  in  a  land  of  so 
many  faiths  it  could  not  rest  upon  religion ;  but  the  effort  is  to 
make  headway  against  sharp  bargaining  that  seeks  to  get  wealth 
from  all  purchasers  by  every  method  tolerated  by  an  imperfect  law. 
"  No  fog  ever  baffled  a  sailor  more  completely  than  the  dual  code 
of  morality,  the  outgrowth  of  a  degenerate  mercantile  system  that 
has  blinded  and  misled  the  people  all  over  the  world.  The  true 
standard  of  business  dealing  has  been  hidden  and  needs  to  be 
brought  to  light."  Physical  training  is  emphasized,  for  all  must 
serve  at  least  one  year  in  the  army  after  graduation,  two  years 
being  deducted.  There  are  two  departments — domestic  and  foreign. 
The  students  form  corporations.  One  delegate  from  this  school, 
Zensaku  Sanc,^  writes  disparagingly  of  some  of  our  business  college 
professors,  finding  one  who  did  not  know  the  meaning  of  common 
phrases.  This  is  a  school  for  consuls.  In  the  Commercial  Museum 
each  article  has  a  ticket  stating  its  origin,  pcice,  etc.  These  schools 
have  helped  Japanese  commerce,  although  still  in  its  infancy,  to 
realize  that  trade  "  is  the  war  of  peace,"  and  that  its  soldiers  require 
efficient  training. 

Austin  Lee  points  out  that  in  1889  only  about  2,000  students  in 
France  received  commercial  instruction,  although  about  400.000 
youth  each  year  entered  on  a  business  career.  The  next  year,  in 
1890,  the  certificate  of  graduation  from  the  best  commercial  schools 
in  France  entitled  pupils  to  a  reduction  of  the  term  of  military 
service  from  three  years  to  one,  provided  they  attained  an  average 
mark  of  si.xty-five  per  cent.  This  brought  at  once  new  life  into 
these  institutions.  Higher  commercial  instruction  in  France  may 
be  said  to  have  begun  with  the  plan  of  two  merchants  in  1820,  who 
established  L'^colc  Supcricurc  dc  Commerce,  founded  on  an  idea 
the  practical  value  of  which  was  long  discussed.  It  passed  through 
a  long  period  of  groping  and  frequent  change,  almost  ruin,  and  only 
since  1869  has  it  had  a  continuous  existence  unbroken  by  crisis  or 
calamity.  It  receives  resident  and  day  pupils,  who  must  be  at  least 
fifteen,  and  receives  them  on  the  basis  of  examination,  from  which, 
however,  graduates  of  the  Lyccc  with  the  baccalaureate  degree  are 

'  Commercial  Education  in  Japan.  Great  Britain.  Special  Reports  on 
Educational  Subjects.     1902,  v.  8,  pp.  555-567. 


654  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

exempt.  There  are  many  examinations,  grades,  types  of  diploma, 
with  models  and  rewards,  and  the  usual  minute  prescriptions  by 
the  government.  This  school  has  served  as  a  model  for  others,  not 
only  in  France,  but  elsewhere.  Stress  is  laid  on  the  motto  "  Com- 
merce oblige,"  and  upon  honesty,  initiative,  perseverance,  rather  than 
on  routine  clerical  qualities.  A  quarterly  bulletin  issues  interesting 
papers  upon  social  as  well  as  economic  subjects.  Commerce  is  hard 
to  teach.  The  Chamber  of  Commerce  bought  this  school  in  1869, 
and  in  1876  offered  traveling  scholarships  to  those  who  had  written 
the  best  reports  upon  the  factories,  mines,  etc.,  they  had  visited, 
entitling  the  holder  to  spend  the  summer  in  other  countries  investi- 
gating questions  suggested  by  the  Chamber.  In  1890  six  others 
like  it  were  established.  Foreigners  are  admitted  if  there  are  vacan- 
cies. The  course  covers  a  wide  range  of  topics,  and  the  final  mark 
is  based  not  upon  the  answers  given  on  fixed  days,  but  it  is  sought 
to  thwart  the  clever  devices  of  crammers  who  violate  the  laws  of 
education.  The  law  specifies  five  excuses  only  which  can  be  ac- 
cepted. In  1898  it  moved  to  better  quarters,  and  has  a  fine  museum, 
laboratory,  dining  room,  and  sanatorium.  L'Ecole  des  Hautes  Etudes 
Commerciales  is  very  slightly  higher,  and  since  1894  has  had  a 
normal  section  for  the  training  of  commercial  teachers.  Candidates 
must  be  at  least  twenty,  and  day  pupils  are  admitted.  These  schools 
suffer  because  of  the  social  ambitions  of  students,  which  have  caused 
France  to  be  overrun  with  a  learned  proletariat  pursuing  ambitions 
they  have  little  chance  to  satisfy,  while  the  strife  still  rages  between 
the  technical  and  purely  educational  ideals.  The  Commercial  Insti- 
tute in  Wagram  Avenue,  founded  in  1884,  specializes  on  the  export 
trade.  There  are  also  five  schools  of  a  similar  type  in  cities  outside 
Paris,  while  there  are  three  primary  schools  of  commerce  in  Paris 
and  one  in  the  Provinces.  Those  at  Lyon,  Marseilles,  and  Havre 
are  controlled  by  private  corporations.  These  higher  institutions 
have  very  comprehensive  courses.  They  teach  customs,  banking, 
exchange,  insurance,  syndicates,  interest,  discount,  commerce,  mon- 
etary systems,  modes  of  bookkeeping,  inventories,  various  types  of 
merchandise,  combustibles,  vegetable,  animal,  and  mineral  products, 
testing,  analysis,  civil,  industrial,  and  marine  law  of  various  coun- 
tries, brokers'  agents,  commissions,  bonders,  invoices,  quittances, 
receipts,  card  samples,  inland  and  seaport  markets,  letters  of  credit, 
clearing  houses,  bills  of  lading,  many  kinds  of  bookkeeping,  ware- 
houses, savings,  loans,  premiums,  middlemen,  commissions,  inter- 
national weights,  measures  and  money,  stocks,  bonds,  daily  quota- 
tions, consuls,  annuities,  lotteries,  tret,  wear  and  tear,  pensions,  with 
a  great  deal  about  materials  and  the  chemistry  and  physics  applied 
to  them,  such  as  fertilizers,  resins,  amber,  rubber,  oils,  building 
material,  quarrying,  tiles,  modes  of  paving,  plasters,  forestry,  with 
considerable  attention  each  to  iron,  steel,  brass,  zinc,  tin,  silver,  gold, 
bismuth,  lead,  mercury,  platinum,  alloys,  glass,  horn,  shell,  ivory, 
glues,    feathers,    hair,    bristles,    silk,    wool,    flax,    jute,    cotton    spin- 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  655 

ning,  textiles,  spools,  threads,  draperies,  sugar,  drinks,  chalks,  soaps, 
milk,  tea,  coffee,  races,  religion,  climates,  etc.  Considerable  stress 
is  laid  on  the  history  of  commerce  from  the  Phccnicians  down,  the 
great  mediaeval  highways  by  land  and  sea,  fairs,  effects  of  wars,  and 
of  the  discoveries  of  the  new  world,  commercial  basis  of  the  great- 
ness of  Italy  and  Flanders,  commercial  bubbles,  inflations,  blockades, 
Zollvereins,  commercial  treaties,  panics,  merchant  marine,  Suez 
Canal,  colonies,  chambers  of  commerce,  consuls,  rights  of  domicile, 
marriage,  wills,  franchises,  mortgages,  competency  of  minors,  mar- 
ried women,  power  of  attorney,  indorsements,  privateers,  abandon- 
ment of  ships,  trade-marks,  labels,  counterfeiting,  slavery,  serfdom, 
absenteeism,  pauperism,  budgets,  proportionate,  progressive,  land, 
stamp  and  surtaxes,  duties,  custom  houses,  frontiers,  telegraphs,  tele- 
phones, elevators,  jetties,  floating  docks,  tide  ports.  There  were, 
however,  still  in  France,  in  1900,  103  chambers  of  commerce  that 
had  done  nothing  in  this  line. 

One  of  the  oldest  and  most  famous  European  colleges  of  com- 
merce was  founded  at  Antwerp  half  a  century  ago  to  enable  bright 
young  men  to  advance  rapidly.  The  regular  pupils,  as  opposed  to 
free  pupils,  obtain  a  diploma  in  two  years.  Each  may  choose  a 
foreign  language  he  desires  to  be  competent  to  correspond  in,  Rus- 
sian included.  Traveling  scholars  make  reports,  often  utilized  by 
.the  government.  Arthur  Herbart  reports  that  in  Sweden  commer- 
cial education  is  entirely  private,  the  state  aiding  three  schools,  while 
in  Norway  C.  Dundus  describes  two  classes,  private  and  municipal, 
the  best  being  at  Christiania,  which  is  open  to  both  sexes.  In 
Switzerland  B.  C.  Lowther  describes  more  than  a  score  of  such 
schools,  in  which  there  is  much  local  diversity.  Some  of  them  are 
gratuitous  under  the  government,  some  coeducational ;  some  aid 
their  graduates  to  find  employment.  In  all,  business  firms  are  vis- 
ited, and  there  are  samples  of  merchandise  and  libraries.  A.  Peel 
reports  twenty-two  commercial  schools.  In  Italy,  Mr.  Alban  Young 
describes  the  Royal  Higher  School  of  Commerce,  at  Venice,  founded 
in  1868,  with  a  special  consular  course  of  five  years.  Another  was 
established  at  Bari  in  1873,  with  a  model  oflice  to  train  for  business 
and  for  consulates.  Raikes,  in  a  report  presented  to  I'arliament  in 
February,  1909.  describes  twelve  such  schools  in  Belgium.  In  1887 
the  state  universities  were  empowered  to  give  the  degree  of  Superior 
Licentiate  of  Commercial  and  Consular  Science.  Most  of  these 
schools  are  due  to  private  enterprise.  In  Denmark  there  arc  several 
schools,  the  chief  being  at  Copenhagen,  which  has  had  a  checkered 
history  for  nearly  a  hundred  years.  Here,  however,  there  is  no 
curtailment  of  military  service,  and  the  students  are  not  held,  but 
drop  off  into  offices  as  soon  as  possible.  These  are  not  trade  schools, 
but  schools  of  trade. 

There  is  no  institution  in  Great  Britain  that  can  fairly  be  called 
a  commercial  high  school,  although  there  is  just  now  a  movement 
in  this  direction.     To  this  lack  may  be  attributed  the  growing  dis- 


6s6  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

placement  of  English  youth  in  the  great  business  houses  of  London 
by  Frenchmen,  Germans,  and  Italians.  Instead  of  beginning  this 
work  by  teaching,  London  did  so  in  a  characteristic  English  way  by 
establishing  examinations,  granting  commercial  certificates  to  all 
who  could  pass;  but  it  was  soon  found  that  there  were  no  properly 
qualified  teachers,  so  that  this  work  has  not  been  successful. 

If  skilled  labor  requires  the  most  specialized,  commerce 
and  trade  require  probably  the  most  general  of  all  kinds  of 
education.  He  who  would  buy  cheapest  and  sell  dearest  must 
have  some  knowledge  of  the  markets  of  the  world,  or  at  least 
of  those  parts  not  walled  from  him  by  a  prphibitive  tariff. 
He  must  know  raw  materials,  and  these  are  a  vast  number, 
must  know  something  of  all  the  chief  processes  by  which  fin- 
ished commodities  are  prepared,  how  things  are  put  up,  how 
to  find  buyers,  where  to  ship,  etc.  If  our  selling  agencies  are 
perhaps  overefficient  for  our  home  markets,  as  shown  above, 
they  are  not  sufficiently  so  to  cope  with  our  competitors  in 
other  lands  in  selling  abroad,  so  that  we  are  relatively  out- 
stripped in  foreign  markets,  notably  just  now  in  South  Amer- 
ica, for  trade  knows  no  Monroe  Doctrine.  Of  all  the  stu- 
pendous new  problems  now  opening  to  the  newer  and  greater 
education  of  the  future,  none  exceeds  in  magnitude  and  in- 
tricacy the  question  whether  we  can  educate  for  business  in 
this  sense.  England,  the  chief  of  modern  commercial  powers, 
in  many  respects,  is  only  at  this  moment  beginning  to  attempt 
it,  and  of  most  of  the  few  score  great  captains  of  industry 
who  control  the  business  of  the  country  there  are  but  few 
who  yet  believe  that  any  course  of  business  training  that  is 
possible  would  have  helped  them  much  in  their  work.  They 
hold  that  to  learn  it  one  must  plunge  in  early  in  life,  and  that 
no  royal  road  to  success  could  be  laid  out.  They  have  no 
ability  and  no  wish  to  impart  to  others  the  real  secrets  of 
their  achievements,  unless  in  platitudinous  counsels  to  the 
young  to  be  good,  temperate,  to  save,  work  hard,  etc.  More- 
over, if  they  could  and  would  write  an  autobiography  intime, 
the  shifts  and  dcA^ices  by  which  they  formulated  and  solved 
their  own  critical  and  original  problems  would  not  always  be 
edifying  or  even  ethical,  while  conditions  are  also  changing 
so  fast  that  anyone  who  copied  them  would  be  left  behind. 
Again,  while  teacher  and  class  can  visit  factories,  trade  is  not 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  657 

capable  of  being  so  well  demonstrated  object-lessonwise,  for 
its  operations  only  center  in  offices,  but  they  can  be  studied 
only  where  markets  are.  Retailers,  too,  would  hardly  be  dis- 
posed to  open  all  the  conditions  upon  which  their  profits  de- 
pend. To  know  a  business  seems  to  demand  apprenticeship 
to  it.  If  Carnegie,  Rockefeller,  Morgan,  Hill,  and  others 
would  each  give  a  course  of  lectures  in  some  of  the  new  col- 
lege schools  of  commerce  or  business,  each  of  which  should 
be  a  heart-to-heart  talk  to  advanced  and  select  students,  with 
no  reporters  admitted,  and  each  be  confined  to  his  own  special 
line  of  endeavor,  describe  frankly  his  chief  problems  and  just 
how  his  great  coups  were  made  and  tell  of  his  private  meth- 
ods and  secret  rules,  then  we  should  have  indeed  a  new 
fashion  set  in  education  and  new  vital  currents  o\itw  from 
the  office  of  the  great  trust  to  the  college.  I  wonder  if  some- 
thing like  this  will  not  one  day  be  a  demand  laid  upon  those 
who  have  been  prosperous !  It  might  be  regarded  as  a  higher 
type  of  charity,  establishing  a  new  and  personal  bond  between 
successful  senescents  and  aspiring  adolescents.  To  give  a 
vast  fortune  wisely  is  said  to  be  even  harder  than  to  acquire  it. 
It  is  a  splendid  new  instinct  of  old  age  unknown  to  Cicero, 
who  described  old  age  in  such  inspiring  terms.  The  passion  of 
these  youth  who  long,  above  all  things,  to  get  rich  honorably 
is  like  every  other  interest,  capable  of  vast  service  for  peda- 
gogy if  it  can  be  turned  on.  Probably  with  most  of  the 
ablest  young  Americans  this  is  the  very  strongest  of  all  their 
desires,  for  which  they  would  do  and  sacrifice  more  than  for 
anything  else.  Now,  this  zest  largely  runs  to  waste  pedagog- 
ically.  It  is  at  least  an  appetite  that  is  fed  on  very  scanty 
and  ill-adapted  food.  More  than  by  rendering  financial  aid, 
these  great  leaders  could  help  young  men  who  most  of  all 
desire  to  follow  in  their  footsteps,  by  letting  them  hear  from 
their  own  lips  how  they  proceeded,  where  and  why  they 
failed  in  this  point  and  won  in  that,  something  of  what  they 
regret  as  well  as  what  they  approve  in  their  own  careers.  C(mi- 
fessions  of  this  sort  are  supremely  good  for  the  souls  both 
of  those  who  make  and  for  those  who  hear  them,  especially 
those  who  have  no  children  or  have  more  wealth  than  they 
wish  them  to  have,  and  so  give  to  others  or  accept  a  kind 
of  foster  parenthood  toward  the  sons  of  others.  Young,  elite 
43 


658  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

aspirants  for  wealth  have  a  prodigious  appetite  for  what  these 
men  could  tell,  and  would  listen  to  them  as  to  no  others.  To 
feed  them  with  this  wisdom  of  experience  would  be  the  cul- 
mination of  the  higher  parenthood  and  give  the  quickening 
touch  between  old  and  young,  between  the  frontier  and  the 
acolyte,  and  it  is  precisely  this  that  our  country  now  so  dan- 
gerously and  unprecedentedly  lacks,  as  I  have  shown  else- 
where. Should  not  retirement  from  business,  along  with  its 
exemptions  and  immunities,  bring  some  new  duties?  Should 
not  the  reminiscent  instincts  of  age  be  indulged  by  making 
accessible,  at  least  in  dictated  autobiographies,  even  though 
they  be  reserved  from  publication  for  a  century,  the  calm  and 
final  review  and  self-critique  of  these  most  characteristically 
American  lives  ?  Is  this  not  a  part  of  the  art  of  large  giving, 
and  why  should  the  world  lose  with  their  death  such  addi- 
tions as  this  would  make  to  its  stock  of  experience?  Teach- 
ing is  surely  a  sacred  duty  of  all  those  who  have  wisdom  that 
the  world  wants,  and  why  should  what  they  know  die  with 
them  when  it  is  so  craved? 

Wanting  this,  every  local  teacher  of  commercial  education 
should  enlist  every  business  man  of  ability  and  public  spirit 
in  the  community  to  talk  to  students  on  the  lights  and  shad- 
ows of  his  own  trade.  Here  lies  a  great  storehouse  of  true 
and  hard-won  knowledge  that  has  often  cost  a  lifetime  of 
labor  and  involved  as  much  intellectual  work  as  the  original 
researches  and  discoveries  of  science.  And  why  should  each 
generation  begin  at  the  beginning  or  be  taught  by  the  method 
of  hints  or  random  giving  of  points  when  each  ought  to  im- 
prove the  race  by  consecrating  to  it  all  that  is  best  in  it?  If 
experts,  or  even  corner-makers  in  wool,  cotton,  pork,  lumber, 
leather,  wheat,  corn,  railroad  and  other  stocks  and  bonds, 
would  talk  and  answer  questions  teachers  could  put  them  for 
the  benefit  of  their  pupils,  a  current  of  vital  interest  would  pass 
between  them.  If  every  method  and  device  that  succeeds  is 
bound  up  in  secrecy,  then  pedagogy  in  this  field  may  well 
despair.  We  teachers  acquire  a  passion  for  knowledge  all 
men  do  not  have  and  for  imparting  the  best  and  latest  we 
know,  and  so  it  is  hard  for  us  to  understand  those  who  make 
their  profits  by  the  suppression  of  this  teaching  instinct  which 
seems  to  us  innate  and  inherited,  integral  even  to  the  parental 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  659 

impulse  and  to  "  big-brother  "  and  other  similar  movements. 
Nowhere  else  are  so  many  of  the  teachers  those  who  have 
tried  and  failed  in  the  practice  of  what  they  teach  or  who 
could  not  succeed  in  their  specialty  if  they  tried. 

Again,  if  not  this,  or  in  addition  to  it,  text-books,  also  a 
new  kind,  are  here,  too,  wanting,  as  indeed  are  often  those  of 
any  kind.  How  can  commerce  in  an  inland  or  rural  high 
school  or  college  be  rightly  taught  except  in  an  empty,  for- 
mal way  and  invested  with  only  the  ghastly  semblance  of 
reality  by  the  platitudinous  and  eflfete  philosophy  of  general 
culture,  which  is  now  only  the  last  resort  and  excuse  of  the 
devitalized  attitude  of  the  dead  teacher  who,  in  thus  seeking 
to  excuse,  really  accuses  himself?  Excursions,  pedagogical 
journeys  with  a  carefully  prepared  curriculum  or  itinerary  of 
business  houses,  are  indispensable,  even  if  certain  clerks  have 
to  be  trained,  paid,  and  set  apart  to  show  and  tell.  We  should 
put  it  up  to  mercantile  citizens  who  criticise  the  products  of 
the  school  to  let  it  annex  them  in  the  sense  of  cooperating  to 
provide  for  half  days  of  pedagogic  visitations  by  relays  of 
classes.  Let  us  say  to  them.  Be  a  father  and  teacher  for  a 
few  hours  to  these  young  pupils;  demonstrate,  instruct,  in- 
form, show  them  over  your  establishment;  prepare  for  this 
work  a  little  in  advance  to  insure  them  the  greatest  profit  from 
it;  contribute  something  to  make  the  school  life  vital  and  to 
rescue  it  from  artificiality  and  isolation.  Dismiss  as  hopelessly 
unfit  and  afraid  of  his  work  the  teacher  who  hints  that  this 
sort  of  thing  would  interfere  with  the  regular  studies,  for  the 
best  curriculum  is  only  "  a  thing  of  shreds  and  patches  "  com- 
pared with  these  things.  Make  the  commercial  school  peri- 
patetic, put  it  on  wheels  if  only  to  render  your  own  brain 
wheelless,  teach  the  geography  of  where  things  come  from 
and  go  to  that  are  in  your  town.  In  English,  teach  the  vocab- 
ulary of  business  terms;  know  the  local  history  as  made  by 
business;  read  the  news  of  the  day  as  it  affects  sales,  pur- 
chases, prices ;  catch  every  good  drummer,  by  day  or  evening, 
and  make  him  talk  of  the  things  nearest  his  heart  for  an  hour 
to  the  class,  question  and  send  him  out  with  a  new  sense  of 
his  usefulness;  exchange  local  studies  of  your  school  with 
those  of  others  elsewhere;  keep  in  touch  with  the  board  of 
trade,  the  town  or  city  officers;  collect  trade  journals;  keep 


66o  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

up  to  date  and  realize  that,  whatever  other  schools  may  do, 
those  of  this  type  can  never  remain  stationary.  Thus  these 
courses  might  be  made  less  anaemic.  Here  we  are  teaching 
very  poorly  what  as  a  nation  we  do  best.  We  are  training 
understrappers  who  fit  and  fill  subordinate  places  and  grow 
content  in  them  and  lack  the  power  to  rise.  What  great  busi- 
ness man  was  ever  trained  in  any  of  our  commercial  schools? 
In  agriculture  it  is  a  crime  to  conceal,  and  a  duty  to  impart, 
all  its  latest,  highest,  and  best  knowledge  to  all  the  people. 
Nothing  can  be  patented  or  even  hidden.  Manufacture  has 
more  and  high  finance  and  trusts  have  most  esoteric  wisdom 
sequestered  from  schools. 

Education  for  the  Farm. — This,  to  be  successful,  must 
forever  bottom  on  love  of  animals,  flowers,  plants,  trees,  fields, 
water,  and  nature  generally.  (As  set  forth  in  Chapter  XII 
of  my  "Adolescence.")  From  this  love  arose  first,  and  are 
still  fed  also  science,  art,  literature,  and  religion.  We  are 
hearing  again  the  call  of  the  wild  back  to  the  land,  the  coun- 
try, rural  life,  natural  and  economic,  as  contrasted  with  tech- 
nical and  scholastic  nature  study.  On  this  sentiment  rests  not 
only  agriculture,  but  forestry  and  all  kinds  of  animal  culture, 
bees,  inse9ts,  pests,  wild  birds,  barnyard  fowl,  fish,  game,  etc., 
all  observed  with  the  natural  eye,  alive  and  in  their  own 
habitat,  rather  than  dead  and  studied  by  sections  through  a 
microscope.  This  work  needs  women  no  less  than  men,  is 
for  children  and  adults,  the  academic  and  the  unschooled  alike. 
It  points  to  the  simple  life.  It  is  to-day  further  along  and 
better  provided  for  by  way  of  teachers,  apparatus  for  prac- 
tical work,  literature,  texts,  higher  institutions  than  any  or 
all  the  other  lines  of  industrial  training,  and  has  far  more 
governmental  and  private  agencies  and  a  stronger  public  sen- 
timent behind  it.  Here,  too,  we  have  less  to  learn  from 
Europe  and  more  to  teach  her.  The  town  and  city  have  long 
drawn  off  the  best  youth  and  maidens,  and  will  long  continue 
to  do  so,  but  rural  is  now  beginning  to  assert  its  charms  and 
claims  again  against  urban  life  as  never  before;  the  country 
is  coming  into  the  city  and  rapid  transportation  is  greatly 
extending  suburban  life  and  giving  it  new  rural  traits.  The 
rich  are  leading  a  new  hegira  to  the  fields  and  recreating 
abandoned  farms.     New  journals,  books,  and  articles  are  ex- 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  66i 

pressing  and  aiding  not  only  the  summer  but  the  winter  joys 
in  the  open.  Our  decadent  rural  schools  are  being  reorgan- 
ized and  educators  have  been  taught  a  wholesome  sense  of 
dissatisfaction  with  the  stuffy  ojd  education  of  books. 

On  the  basis  of  this  broader  movement  have  grown  the 
now  nearly  100,000  school  gardens  in  the  United  States,^  the 
brief  history  of  which  goes  back  barely  ten  years  and  seems 
a  new  fairy  tale  of  pedagogy.  These  gardens  are  of  all  kinds, 
sizes,  shapes,  in  all  sorts  of  places,  under  every  kind  of  con- 
trol, with  few  or  many  facilities,  so  that  something  in  this 
line  can  be  done  almost  everywhere.  Sometimes  the  hard 
earth  or  brick  or  other  pavement  of  the  schoolyard  is  taken 
up  to  make  room  for  them,  soil  is  carted  on  if  necessary, 
wastes  are  watered,  marshes  drained  and  reclaimed  from  wild- 
ness,  vacant  lots  loaned,  rented,  or  sometimes  bought  near  by, 
or  perhaps  at  some  distance  from  the  school,  so  that  there  is 
no  longer  any  excuse  for  untilled  ground  near  a  school,  the 
hygienic  conditions  of  which  are  thus  often  improved.  There 
are  long  lists  of  flowers,  vines,  nursery,  shade,  and  ornamental 
shrubs,  trees  and  hedgerows,  almost  every  kitchen  vegetable 
that  will  grow,  often  corn  and  grain  are  raised.  Beets,  let- 
tuce, parsnips,  carrots,  peas,  sweet  and  pop  corn,  cabbages, 
cauliflower,  pumpkins,  squashes,  cucumbers,  melons,  radishes 
and  the  rest  are  planted  and  tended  by  boys  and  girls  who 
often  spade  up  the  ground,  water  plants  in  drought  by  many 
a  device.  There  are  tools,  tool  houses,  exhibits  of  produce 
and  prizes.  The  crops  are  perhaps  taken  home,  used  on  the 
family  table,  given  or  sold  to  parents  or  the  markets,  ex- 
changed or  bartered  to  those  who  can  tend  them  to  the  end 
through  the  long  vacation.  Children  are  taught  alxnit  several 
score  of  weeds,  insects,  pests,  and  how  to  deal  with  them. 
They  read  or  are  told  the  content  of  many  a  special  leaflet 
by    the    government   or   the   state   agricultural    college,    both 

'  See  as  good  guides  and  finders  to  the  voluminous  literature  here,  first  the 
work  of  two  of  my  Clark  colleaRues,  viz.,  C.  V.  IhKlf^c,  Nature  Study  and  Life, 
Boston,  Ginn  &  Co.,  1002.  514  p.  And  R.  J.  Jewell,  Agricultural  Kducatitm,  U.  S. 
Bureau  of  Education  Bulletin,  No.  2,  1907.  140  p.  Sec  also,  H.  W.  Foght,  The 
American  Rural  School.  New  York,  The  Macmillan  Co.,  iqio.  361  p.  M.  L. 
Greene,  Among  Schof)l  Gardens,  Russell  Sage  Foundation,  N.  Y.,  Charities  Pub- 
lication Committee,  iqio.  388  p.  H.  G.  Parsons,  Children's  Gardens  for  Pleas- 
ure, Health,  and  Education,  N.  Y.,  Sturgis  &  Walton  Co.,  1910.     226  p. 


662  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

of  which  are  now  doing  so  much  for  children.  They  are 
given  seeds  in  great  profusion,  or  sold  them  in  penny  pack- 
ages, with  printed  directions.  Very  many  kinds  of  flowers 
are  raised  and  taken  home,  sold,  worn,  used  to  decorate  the 
schoolroom,  sent  to  hospitals  or  invalids,  funerals,  etc.  The 
children  profit  by  many  a  lesson  on  the  botany  of  roots,  chem- 
istry of  moisture  and  air,  fertilization,  all  with  the  aid  of  spe- 
cial texts,  books,  and  charts.  They  work  out  the  elementary 
geometry  of  plotting  their  individual  and  also  their  common 
beds;  they  study  the  arithmetic  of  cost  and  profit;  often 
come  early  or  stay  after  school  to  work,  spend  some  of  their 
time  through  recess.  Elsewhere,  a  good  part  of  two  or  even 
three  afternoons  a  week  of  school  time  is  given  them  to 
keep  up  their  plot.  Some  persist  into  and  a  few  even  through 
the  summer.  Children  are  sometimes  marked  for  neatness, 
system,  productivity,  are  taught  the  care  and  use  of  tools,  how 
to  plant.  Interest  often  spreads  to  the  home  and  to  the  win- 
dow pots,  and  flowers  in  the  front  and  vegetables  in  the  back 
yard  are  often  cultivated,  while  farm  boys  bring  home  not 
only  interest  but  often  valuable  information  that  the  father 
applies  to  his  profit.  In  1900  Dr.  Robertson  distributed  $100 
in  prizes  for  the  best  heads  of  oat  and  wheat  from  the  father's 
farm.  This  promised  so  well  that  Sir  W.  C.  McDonald 
offered  $10,000  in  small  prizes  for  three  years,  open  to  all 
Canada.  While  some  1,500  boys  began,  450  completed  the 
competition  at  the  end  of  three  years.  Each  must  hand-pick 
enough  of  the  best  heads  to  seed  a  quarter  of  an  acre.  As  a 
result  of  this  three  years'  work,  the  average  increase  in  spring 
wheat  was  found  to  be  eighteen  per  cent  on  the  number  of 
grains  and  twenty-eight  per  cent  in  weight,  while  with  the 
oats  the  increase  was  nineteen  per  cent  in  the  number  of  grains 
and  twenty-eight  per  cent  in  weight.  This  showed  what  the 
school  could  do.  Then  came  the  famous  McDonald  School 
at  Guelph,  for  the  training  of  teachers  in  this  department  was 
really  half  of  the  whole  problem. 

The  principle  that  every  rural  school  should  have  a  gar- 
den, so  that  there  shall  be  a  continuous  chain  of  them  over 
the  country,  now  seems  likely  to  be  literally  realized.  Gardens 
keep  children  in  school  longer  than  they  would  otherwise  stay, 
give  a  wholesome  union  of  motor  and  intellectual  training 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  663 

by  wedding  the  hand  and  the  head,  strengthen  the  body,  im- 
prove the  health  by  exercise  out  of  doors,  make  headway 
against  tuberculosis,  establish  a  new  and  vital  bond  between 
the  home  and  the  school,  make  farm  life  attractive,  interest 
boys  in  the  agricultural  college  and  spur  some  to  enter  it. 
They  have  increased  tenfold  the  number  of  home  gardens 
(Cleveland  had  50,000  due  to  the  school),  given  new  life  to 
the  school  in  cities  that  were  a  little  in  danger  of  falling  be- 
hind (like  Philadelphia,  one  of  the  leaders  in  this  movement, 
New  York  being  well  in  the  rear  of  it).  They  have  called 
into  life  many  local  and  some  large  auxiliary  associations  and 
societies.  These  gardens  are  sometimes  made  social  centers. 
They  certainly  tend  to  keep  the  child  off  the  street  and  from 
idle  and  vicious  associates.  They  cooperate  with  the  parks, 
playgrounds,  village  improvement  clubs,  boards  of  health,  and 
sometimes  boards  of  trade.  They  enlist  janitors.  Some  of 
them  employ  expensive  experts.  They  bring  a  spirit  of  rivalry, 
prompt  exchanges  with  other  schools,  sometimes  give  interest 
in  landscape  gardening  and  forestry,  in  soil  fertility,  and  dis- 
tinctly help  agriculture,  the  oldest  of  the  arts  and  the  newest 
of  the  sciences.  They  motivate  excursions,  make  for  docil- 
ity, order,  system,  perseverance,  punctuality,  put  life  into  ele- 
mentary mathematics,  furnish  material  for  compositions,  touch 
up  geography,  give  zest  to  elementary  botany  and  zoology, 
find  moral  lessons  in  weeds  as  enemies,  influence  reading,  are 
full  of  silent  values  for  citizenship,  prompt  charity  to  the  poor, 
the  sick,  cripples;  teach  color  schemes  and  strengthen  the 
aesthetic  sense,  widen  the  vocabulary,  connect  with  and  enlarge 
domestic  life,  give  a  wholesome  sense  of  ownership,  provoke 
the  young  to  win  and  the  old  to  give  prizes,  teacii  habits  of 
regular  and  sustained  industry,  make  troublesome  boys  tract- 
able, exclude  baser  thoughts,  qualify  and  incline  the  young 
to  later  care  better  for  children  for  having  learned  to  care 
for  plants.  They  relieve  the  dnidgery  of  class  work,  make 
the  mind  grow  with  the  plants.  They  inspire  vocational  pur- 
pose, interest  in  industrial  history,  teach  respect  for  proiKTty. 
vitalize  Arbor  Day,  are  closely  ass(x:iated  with  patriotism  and 
the  flag,  give  a  little  spending  money,  teach  kindness  to  ani- 
mals, are  particularly  l)eneficent  for  young  and  criminals,  are 
religious  because  they  point  the  way  from  nature  to  its  Au- 


664  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

thor.  Thus,  in  fine,  they  help  us  nearer  to  God  and  to  the 
almighty  dollar. 

All  these  claims  and  more  are  now  made.  I  doubt  if  any 
educational  movement  in  history  has  ever  spread  so  rapidly 
and  w^ith  such  enthusiasm  or  if  so  much  was  ever  claimed  for 
anything  else  ever  taught.  Garden  is  indeed  a  mystic  word, 
suggestive  of  paradise,  beauty,  and  joy.  The  pleasure  with 
which  we  contemplate  this  has  its  roots  doubtless  deep  down 
in  the  psychogenetic  strata  which  represent  the  dawn  of  do- 
mestication and  cibicultural  life.  The  pulse  of  springtide 
throbs  through  all  this  pedagogic  renaissance.  After  the  city 
interlude  of  only  a  few  generations,  the  heart  of  man  reverts 
to  the  great  All-mother,  Nature.  The  soil  smells  good  again 
after  the  school  smells,  and  we  feel  the  benediction  of  the 
broad  fields  and  blue  sky  sinking  into  our  very  souls.  Child- 
hood, especially,  belongs  out  of  doors  and  in  the  country,  has 
been  led  captive  and  is  now  beginning  to  come  home  from 
its  captivity.  The  spirit  of  life,  especially  in  the  spring  and 
summer,  draws  us  all  into  the  open  to  rest  and  regenerate 
our  frayed  and  shopworn  souls.  This  movement  preludes  a 
general  jail  delivery  of  the  child  too  long  imprisoned  in  class- 
rooms. It  is  high  time  that  we  thought  of  it.  The  garden 
is  the  lungs  of  the  school,  is  a  boon  to  the  health  of  teachers, 
throws  the  strain  from  the  nervous  system  and  the  tiny  acces- 
sory muscles  that  make  for  accuracy  to  the  larger,  older  fun- 
damental muscles  of  the  back,  thighs,  and  shoulders  that  dig, 
pick,  shovel,  rake,  and  lift;  teaches  the  significance  of  rain, 
heat,  cold,  the  winter,  sunshine,  the  meaning  of  leaves,  grass, 
and  blossoms  in  nature  and  in  art  for  ornament;  lifts  the 
burden  of  examinations  by  shifting  the  stress  from  knowing 
to  doing,  from  methods  to  products. 

A  weak  point  in  all  this  is  the  eight  to  twelve  weeks'  vaca- 
tion. Many,  if  not  most,  of  these  youthful  gardeners  never 
gather  or  even  see  the  fruit  of  their  labors.  Some,  of  course, 
are  in  at  the  harvesting,  but  many  sell,  give,  or  barter  the 
fruit  of  their  labors  or  desert  before  it  comes.  Some  work 
on  a  while  at  irregular  intervals,  but  we  have  no  statistics  as 
to  the  number  of  harvesters,  for  the  movement  is  now  at  the 
stage  when  all  praise  and  none  criticise.  I  do  not  find  any 
suggestion  that  the  school  should  hold  over  during  the  hot 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  66$ 

months  and  allow  the  farmers'  natural  vacation  in  the  winter. 
During  most  of  the  school  year  gardening  is  impossible  in  the 
North,  and  I  have  seen  many  of  them  in  a  pitiful  state  in 
dog  days.  True,  children  can  study  books  and  theory  and 
read  when  the  world  is  snowbound,  but  to  begin  and  not 
finish  is  not  the  ideal  of  education.  Some  fruit  rots,  some  is 
stolen,  some  cared  for  by  new  recruits  who  did  not  sow  or 
plant,  and  hothouses  or  winter  gardens  are  a  poor  substitute. 
To  cultivate  only  plants  that  mature  in  June  would  greatly 
limit  the  range  of  crops. 

Again,  garden  work  is  for  most  children  a  halfway  sta- 
tion between  study  and  play,  so  that  while  in  term  time  the 
alternative  between  it  and  the  schoolroom  gives  them  a  delect- 
able opportunity  to  escape  its  confinement,  when  the  tenn 
closes  and  the  option  is  between  gardening  and  the  freedom 
of  vacation,  the  case  is  very  different.  Few  children  ever  did 
or  will  prefer  work  to  play.  Again,  novelty  has  its  own 
charms,  and  these  soon  wear  off  and  we  hear  many  a  tale  of 
loss  of  zest  after  the  tending,  which  is  needful,  becomes  an  old 
story  and  the  necessity  of  keeping  at  it  is  fully  felt.  Once 
more,  farmers'  children  often  feel  it  irksome  because  they 
have  had  similar  duties  at  home  and  do  not  care  for  a  second 
apprenticeship.  Moreover,  there  are  some  children  who  are 
really  too  delicate  to  keep  their  beds  without  help,  and  the 
system  usually  requires  plots  of  equal  size  for  boys  and  girls 
alike  of  the  same  grade,  making  no  distinction  between  the 
weak  and  those  strong  enough  to  tend  half  a  dozen  beds. 
Thus,  there  are  difficulties  yet  to  be  obviated  and  problems 
yet  to  be  solved. 

Despite  the  extraordinary  development  of  agricultural  edu- 
cation in  the  grammar  grades  below  and  its  no  less  remark- 
able equipment  in  academic  grades  above.  American  high 
schools,  as  usual  the  xStrongholds  of  conservatism,  have  done 
little,  and  here,  too,  are  the  last  to  respond  to  the  spirit  of 
the  age,  although  there  are,  of  course,  exceptions.  A  dozen 
state  agricultural  colleges  maintain  secondary  schools  and 
there  are  some  for  colored  and  Indian  children.  Several  state 
legislatures  have  provided  for  such  schools  or  courses  and 
there  are  a  number  of  private  secondary  sclio<^)ls  where  it  is 
taught.     Several  hundred  public  high  schools  in  the  country 


666  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

offer  longer  or  shorter,  inadequate  and  ineffective  courses. 
Agricultural  education  always  and  everywhere  tends  to  the  con- 
solidation of  rural  elementary  schools  and  cannot  be  worked 
well  when  they  remain  isolated.  Some  state  universities, 
notably  Illinois,  welcome  young  men  of  secondary  or  no  grade 
to  any  or  all  of  their  scores  of  courses  in  this  department. 
All  rural  high  schools  should  at  least  stress  the  science  on 
which  agriculture  depends,  although  few  do  so.  Especially 
in  the  East,  most  of  the  smaller,  weaker  high  schools  which 
are  rural  spend  most  of  their  teaching  force  in  fitting  a  very 
small  remnant  of  their  pupils  for  college.  Moreover,  com- 
petent teachers  in  these  lines  are  as  yet  few,  for  the  agricul- 
tural colleges  have  not  yet  trained  them  aright  or  in  sufficient 
numbers.  The  chief  obstacle  here  is,  however,  the  inveterate 
prejudice  and  repugnance  of  teachers  and  the  indifference  and 
dislike  of  the  soil  by  secondary  pupils.  Thus,  the  gardening 
enthusiasm  of  the  grades  instead  of  being  developed  is  chilled 
as  soon  as  the  pupils  approach  the  high  school  and  must  re- 
main in  cold  storage  till  the  next  stage  of  training,  if  that 
ever  comes.  This  means  that  the  intellectual  crop  sown  is  too 
often  unharvested.  The  American  schoolboy  is  very  sensitive 
to  the  stages  above  him  at  every  step  in  his  educational  prog- 
ress whether  he  is  ever  to  pass  on  or  not.  Just  as  the  college 
spirit  works  downward  and  pervades  the  high  school,  so  does 
that  of  the  latter  pervade  the  grammar  grades,  so  that  the 
seventh  and  eighth,  to  say  nothing  of  the  sixth,  begin  some- 
times to  look  upon  gardening  as  a  badge  of  their  elementary 
grade  and  as  something  they  will  and  want  soon  to  outgrow 
and  leave  behind.  There  are  also  few  or  no  suitable  second- 
ary text-books,  and  here  we  may  well  hold  the  academic  biol- 
ogist responsible  for  neglect  or  lack  of  insight.  This  is  in 
sharp  contrast  with  professors  of  classics,  mathematics,  and 
literature,  who  flood  .the  mart  for  fitting  schools  with  their 
texts.  Applied  biology  should  now  play  a  tremendous  role 
in  the  lives  of  all  men  and  women  calling  themselves  educated. 
But  the  secondary  text-books  that  exist  are  so  scholastic  that 
the  lessons  of  this  great  science  are  for  the  most  part  un- 
taught, and  entrance  to  what  is  given  is  barred  to  the  laity 
who  have  not  mastered  the  barbaric  tongue  of  scientific  ter- 
minology and  painstaking  laboratory  technic.     Is  there  any- 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  667 

thing  that  boys  and  girls  in  the  four  best  teens  more  need  to 
know  than  the  practical  lessons  of  biology,  and  is  there  any 
subject  in  the  curriculum  so  unpedagogically  taught? 

Europe  has  had  some  of  the  same  difficulties,  France  having 
done  best  on  account  of  the  subdivision  of  land  and  one  adult  in 
four  there  being  a  proprietor,  while  England  has  done  least  because 
primogeniture  keeps  so  much  of  the  land  in  so  few  hands.  France 
has  three  excellent  secondary  schools  of  agriculture,  each  with  a 
large  teaching  staff  and  a  two  years'  course,  including  the  culture 
of  sheep,  silkworm,  wine,  distilling  and  brewing,  tending  cattle, 
poultry,  bees,  etc.  Students  must  all  spend  their  vacation  on  listed 
or  accepted  farms  and  report,  and  must  also  make  frequent  excur- 
sions through  the  neighborhood.  Holland  has  permanent  winter 
schools.  Germany  has  one  in  nearly  every  province,  the  grade  of 
Obcr-Tertia  giving  the  pupils  partial  exemption  from  military  serv- 
ice, which  gives  a  great,  if  artificial,  stimulus  to  these  courses 
which  we  should  call  somewhat  too  scientific  and  theoretical.  Red- 
die's  Abbotsholme  School  in  England  insists  on  some  practical  farm 
work  and  instruction  for  all  boys,  but  the  movement  has  been 
bitterly  opposed  by  the  leaders  of  secondary  education  there. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  this  is  the  age  when  the 
average  boy,  and  still  more  the  girl,  is  most  averse  to  farm 
and  even  to  country  life.  The  social  instincts  are  strong,  and 
so  is  the  love  of  excitement  and  getting  together  in  groups, 
and  these  all  incline  to  the  town  and  city  and  away  from  the 
field  and  its  isolation.  The  boy  may  not  regard  the  faaner 
as  a  yokel  or  hayseed  from  way  back,  but  his  work  and  ways 
do  not  charm,  while  if  the  boy  lives  on  a  farm,  he  strains  his 
tether  most  at  this  age  to  get  away  from  it.  Hence,  if  he 
enters  agricultural  courses  connected  with  academic  institu- 
tions, he  finds  himself  socially  discounted  by  his  schoolmates, 
although  real  progress  is  being  made  in  overcoming  these 
tendencies,  which  will  decline  as  these  courses  Ixxome  thor- 
ough. Perhaps,  indeed,  the  high-school  hiatus  with  its  period 
of  circumnutation  is  necessary  here  where  it  may  be  that  only 
after  a  i)eriod  of  aversion  and  orientation,  when  serious  pur- 
pose is  matured,  will  the  Ix^y  be  ready  to  settle  to  a  plan  of 
rural  life.  If  so.  a  most  Iwneficent  step  is  taken  by  those  col- 
leges who  admit  lads  of  all  ages,  without  entrance  tests  to 
their  courses,  to  a  rich  and  varied  dietary  of  short  and  long, 
special  and  general  courses.     They  often  give  secondary  edu- 


668  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

cation  in  agriculture  to  boys  of  college  age,  or  even  older, 
whether  they  have  been  to  high  school  or  graduated  in  other 
courses  there,  ignoring  these. 

It  is  doubtful  if  the  future  historian  of  education  will 
find  more  brilliant  pages  than  those  describing  the  devel- 
opment of  agricultural  education  in  college  and  university 
grades  in  this  country,  with  which  nothing  else  in  the  world 
has  anything  to  compare.  It  began,  as  all  know,  with  the 
Morrill  Bill  of  1862  appropriating  30,000  acres  of  land  for 
each  member  of  Congress  to  establish  colleges  of  "  agricul- 
tural and  mechanic  arts,"  each  state  thus  receiving  all  the  way 
from  82,314  acres  (Kansas)  to  989,920  acres  (New  York). 
This  represented  a  wide  feeling  that  the  old  classical  colleges 
were  unsatisfactory.  There  was  also  a  sentiment  abroad  at 
that  time  in  the  country  that  the  applications  of  science,  espe- 
cially those  of  chemistry  so  brilliantly  and  lately  made  by 
Liebig,  would  prove  of  the  utmost  economic  value,  so  that 
hope  and  expectation  were  perhaps  somewhat  excessive.  Great 
railroad  grants  were  being  made  by  the  Government  and  wide 
tracts  were  homesteaded  or  thrown  open.  Unfortunately, 
many  of  the  states  sold  their  educational  land  and  the  colleges 
they  established  were  for  the  most  part  poor  and  mean.  Some 
states,  however,  notably  Michigan  and  New  York,  kept  their 
land  and  profited  greatly  by  their  foresight.  Over  1,000,000 
acres  of  this  land  are  still  unsold  and  the  sales  altogether  real- 
ized about  $12,000,000.  Little  good  work,  however,  was  done 
in  this  field  for  twenty-five  years,  for  often  only  agricultural 
departments  were  added  to  existing  institutions.  After  many 
local  beginnings,  however,  came  the  Hatch  Bill  in  1887,  which 
gave  each  state  $15,000  for  an  agricultural  experiment  sta- 
tion. Then  came  the  second  Morrill  Bill  of  1906.  These, 
with  their  cumulative  method  and  aided  by  later  acts,  have 
raised  the  total,  so  that  in  191 1,  when  the  full  benefits  of  all 
this  legislation  are  operative,  each  state  and  territory  will 
receive  $80,000  per  year  from  the  Federal  Government  for 
agricultural  colleges  and  experiment  stations.  Of  these  there 
are  now  sixty-three,  fifteen  states  having  separate  institutions 
for  white  and  colored  students.  The  states,  too,  are  now  vot- 
ing generous  additional  sums,  largely  for  buildings  and  equip- 
ments.     There   is  a  National   Association  of   these   colleges 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  669 

which  aims  to  make  them  equal  in  rank  and  entrance  condi- 
tions to  other  first-class  colleges,  so  that  the  bachelor's  degree 
in  the  former  shall  have  the  same  value  as  it  has  in  the  latter. 
Six  of  these  institutions  conduct  secondary  schools.  They 
also  hold  long  and  short,  summer,  winter,  correspondence, 
extension,  and  normal  courses  and  conduct  farmers'  institutes 
all  over  the  state.  Some  courses  last  only  a  week  or  ten  days 
and  admit  boys.  They  teach  forestry,  dairying,  stock  judg- 
ing, manuring,  entomology,  birds,  foddering,  poultry,  grasses, 
floriculture,  etc.  No  discovery  in  these  stations  can  be  pat- 
ented, but  all  must  be  given  out.  Even  the  Babcock  machine, 
used  the  world  over  and  saving  millions  of  dollars,  profited 
the  inventor  nothing,  (See  Jewell.)  Forty  of  these  colleges 
ofifer  graduate  courses  leading  to  the  degree  of  A.M.,  and 
nine  grant  the  Ph.D.  Ohio  opened  a  graduate  summer  school 
in  1902  with  seventy-five  students,  but  lacked  funds  to  con- 
tinue. In  several  states  special  organizations  have  been  de- 
vised to  spread  at  once  to  the  farthest  hamlet  the  discoveries 
made  at  the  stations,  where  themes  of  immediate  practical 
value  have  precedence  over  all  others.  More  than  a  million 
farmers  attend  the  institutes  yearly  held  by  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment, Several  of  these  colleges  have  reading  courses  for 
farmers,  and  even  for  their  wives,  and  ask  and  answer  ques- 
tions by  mail.  Since  1904,  trains  are  sent  out  all  over  certain 
railroad  systems,  stopping  at  hundreds  of  stations,  preaching, 
e.  g.,  "  the  corn  and  grain  gospel,"  distributing  seed  corn,  of 
which  formerly  oftly  some  sixty-three  per  cent  ripened.  All 
this  is  free  and  has  brought  returns  of  inestimable  value. 
Leaflets  and  bulletins  are  sent  out  by  many  state  colleges  and 
millions  of  them  by  the  Agricultural  Department  at  Wash- 
ington. Some  colleges  g^iide  the  work  of  elementary  schools 
and  conduct  summer  courses  for  these  teachers.  Thus,  the 
contact  between  the  pioneers  of  the  frontier  engaged  in  re- 
search and  those  who  can  profit  by  the  results  of  their  lalK)r 
is  close,  immediate,  vital.  This  brings  into  the  foreground 
a  new  ideal  which  well  comports  with  the  American  spirit 
and  is  far-reaching  and  pervasive,  if  subtle,  in  its  influence 
upon  our  educational  ideals. 

Agricultural    education    is    a   great    advantage    in    that    it 
is   recapitulatory.     Every  civilization   was  "  dug  out  of  the 


670  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

ground  "  and  man  has  been  a  farmer  ever  since  he  began  to 
domesticate  plants  or  animals.  To  go  back  to  old  phyletic 
traits  is  always  a  joy  and  an  inspiration.  Perhaps  the  very 
best  of  this  work  is  that  it  often  makes  the  old  fairly  yearn 
with  the  wish  that  they  might  be  young  again  and  begin  over. 
Children  here,  too,  often  teach  the  teacher,  to  the  great  gain 
of  both.  Again,  the  practical  products  of  scientific  agricul- 
ture are  immense.  We  have  copious  statistics  in  this  line. 
By  the  best  methods  and  more  intensive  farming  the  output 
of  many  products  could  be  doubled  and  some  of  them  easily 
quadrupled.  Despite  all  this  provision,  knowledge  does  sift 
down  rather  slowly  from  the  laboratory  to  the  laborer,  who 
still  often  has  to  be  taught  his  own  interests  by  agencies  that 
force  useful  knowledge  upon  him.  The  social  status  of  farm- 
ing has  been  greatly  elevated  by  this  educational  movement, 
and  a  back  track  from  the  city  to  the  country  may  help  solve 
the  gravest  of  all  the  farmers'  problems,  viz.,  that  of  sufficient 
labor.  The  gardeners  of  Germany  have  lately  protested  that 
their  art  as  now  taught  in  the  schools  is  making  so  many 
people,  rich  and  poor,  sick  and  well,  make  gardens  that  their 
markets  are  impaired.  The  negro  problem  throughout  the 
Black  Belt,  where  trade  unions  exclude  colored  workmen  and 
where  the  latter  have  lost  the  rice  industry  and  are  the  victims 
of  many  sharpers,  is  solvable  only  by  an  agricultural  educa- 
tion that  shall  make  them  independent  on  their  own  farmlets. 
Indeed,  our  political  institutions  were  devised  for  yeomen  in 
small  communities  or,  in  a  word,  for  intelligent  farmers  of 
the  colonial  type  who  learned  self-government  in  the  town 
meeting.  Many  of  our  political  and  social  evils,  the  cancer 
of  corruption  and  graft,  are  mainly  due  to  urbanization,  which 
made  conditions  which  the  framers  of  our  institutions  never 
contemplated,  and  could  be  checked  only  by  a  "  rural  reflux." 
We  are  now  striving  to  reproduce,  though  on  a  higher  plane 
and  better  informed  with  science,  the  old  farm  life  which  I 
knew  as  a  boy,^  and  which  made  perhaps  the  best  educational 
environment  ever  devised  for  adolescent  lads.  The  danger  of 
alienation  from  the  farm  by  collegiate  agricultural  study  is 


'  Hall,  G.  Stanley :  Boy  Life  in  a  Meissachusetts  Town  Forty  Years  Ago.     Ped. 
Sem.,  June,  1906,  v.  13.     p.  192-207, 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  671 

ever  present  and  is  subtle.  It  just  now  inclines  many  youth 
not  especially  fit  by  intellectual  gifts  or  by  training  for  it  to 
seek  a  career  in  experiment  stations,  or  makes  them  traveling 
salesmen  of  tools  and  labor-saving  devices,  or  quasi-experts 
who  would  really  have  done  better  on  the  land.  So  inveterate 
is  the  prejudice  that  withholds  a  man  with  an  academic  degree 
from  stated  labor  with  his  hands,  that  far  too  large  a  propor- 
tion of  those  who  once  enter  an  agricultural  college  do  in 
fact  bid  a  final  farewell  to  the  old  place.  We  lack  too  greatly 
comprehensive  statistics  showing  just  what  becomes  of  these 
bachelors  in  agriculture.  The  call  for  teachers  does  something 
to  deplete  the  farm.  Again,  we  must  know  the  effects  of  the 
new  agriculture,  if  any,  upon  the  size  of  families  and  the  gen- 
eral increase  of  the  farming  population.  Dearth  of  workmen 
is  to  a  considerable  extent  dearth  of  children  of  farmers.  The 
city  is,  of  course,  the  great  sterilizer.  So  was  the  old  New 
England  farm.  Shall  we  improve  and  increase  the  human 
stock  here  as  we  do  cattle?  This  is  the  ultimate  question  by 
which  the  final  value  of  everything  is  to  be  tested.  Does 
every  nation  need  a  stratum  of  its  population  that  shall  gravi- 
tate toward  static  peasant  conditions,  and  is  this  rather 
constant  and  intensive  cultivation  of  the  farmers'  brain 
cutting  off  our  source  of  supply  of  men  and  women  from 
the  future  and  helping  toward  race  suicide  in  just  the  class 
from  which  in  the  past  so  many  of  our  greatest  leaders  have 
sprung  ? 

Here  we  must  note  another  defect  of  agricultural  schools. 
They  give  most  of  their  education  to  field  culture  and  too 
little  to  animal  culture.  Flocks,  herds,  poultry  are,  of  course, 
studied  in  a  practical  way,  but  this  work  should  receive  every 
attention.  Breeds  of  every  kind  of  animals,  the  effects  of 
crossing  and  care  and  j^edigrees,  have  been  relatively  neglected, 
as  corn  was  ten  years  ago,  although  tlie  same  attention  would 
yield  a  no  less  manifold  gain.  The  winter  neglect  of  cattle 
on  Western  farms  alone  brings  enormous  losses,  while  fod- 
dering and  fattening  and  yet  more  attention  to  the  breeding 
of  all  domestic  species  would  not  only  pay,  but  the  serious 
study  of  all  the  essential  aspects  of  animal  culture  would 
not  fail  to  bring  home  some  practical  lesson  for  liunian 
eugenics. 


672  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

We  need,  e.  g.,  a  good  book  each  on  the  horse,  cow,  hog,  sheep, 
and  all  the  rest  of  a  kind  not  unlike  the  Walter  Page  Series  of 
Undomesticated  Animals  published  during  the  last  decade.^  Still 
none  of  these  are  quite  right.  The  horse  book,  e.  g.,  should  be 
copiously  illustrated,  and  should  tell  in  plain  language  the  paleon- 
tological  history  of  the  horse,  which  is  a  classic  paradigm  of  evolu- 
tion because  better  known  all  the  way  than  any  other  from  the 
rabbit-sized  eohippus  up,  which  should  describe  what  is  known  of 
the  domestication  of  the  horse,  characterize  its  relations  to  different 
races,  like  the  Arabs  and  Patagonians  who  live  on  and  with  it,  its 
habits  and  training  from  the  ancient  mediaeval  knights  among  whom 
horse  education  perhaps  reached  its  apex;  should  have  something 
about  equine  culture  history,  the  myths  about  the  horse  and  its 
place  in  fable,  with  a  touch,  but  not  too  much,  of  the  Black  Beauty 
kindness;  should  describe  horse  stock  farms,  care  and  training; 
should  show  distribution  with  maps  and  statistics  of  population,  race, 
plow,  war  horses,  directions  how  to  make  horse  farming  profitable, 
and  a  good  chapter  epitomizing  the  now  very  interesting  literature 
on  the  instincts  or  intelligence  of  the  horse.  We  need  on  similar 
lines  a  dog  book  following  all  these  rubrics  and  utilizing  the  peda- 
gogic suggestions  contained  in  such  studies  as  Bucke ;  ^  also  a  cat 
book  utilizing  Browne.^  These  manuals  should  all  draw  abundantly 
upon  the  studies  in  the  field  of  comparative  psychology  all  the 
way  from  those  of  the  natural  historians  who  follow  and  photograph 
animal  life  afield  to  those  who  experiment  upon  it  under  the  con- 
trolled conditions  of  the  laboratory,  for  animal  behavior  is  a  mine 
of  pedagogy  which  education  has  not  yet  learned  to  utilize.  Here 
let  me  add  parenthetically  how  much  the  world,  too,  needs  a  good 
monkey  book,  and  lion,  tiger,  bear,  wolf,  fox  book,  etc.  The  spirit 
of  these  books  should  be  that  of  S.  C.  Schmucker.'*  Nothing  can 
exceed  the  charm  of  such  books,  if  only  adapted  to  children's  inter- 
ests. Although  we  have  several  texts  in  economic  zoology,"  none 
has  yet  been  written  that  fits  the  nature  and  needs  of  children  and 

*  See  Ditmars,  R.  L.:  The  Reptile  Book,  1907.  472  p.  Dickerson,  M.  C: 
The  Frog  Book,  1906.  300  cuts,  253  p.  Jordan,  D.  S.,  and  B.  W.  Evermann: 
American  Food  and  Game  Fishes,  1902.  400  cuts,  573  p.  Holland,  J.  W.:  The 
Moth  Book,  1903.  479  p.  Howard,  L.  O.:  The  Insect  Book,  1902.  429  p. 
Holland,  W.  J.:  The  Butterfly  Book,  1902.  382  p.  Sutherland,  H.:  Book  of 
Bugs,  1902.     223  p.     Blanchan,  N.:  Bird  Neighbors,  1897.     234  p. 

*  Bucke,  W.  Fowler:  Cyno-psychoses;  Children's  Thoughts,  Reactions,  and 
Feelings  Toward  Pet  Dogs.     Fed.  Sem.,  Dec,  1903,  v.  10,  pp.  459-513. 

'Browne,  Charles  E.,  and  Hall,  G.  S.:  The  Cat  and  the  Child.  Fed.  Sem., 
March,  1904,  v.  11,  pp.  3-29. 

*  Schmucker,  S.  C:  The  Study  of  Nature,  Phila.,  Lippincott,  1909.  315  p. 
And  F.  C.  Hodge's  forthcoming  Civic  Biology. 

'Osborn,  Herbert:  Economic  Zoology,  New  York,  The  Macmillan  Co.,  1908. 
490  p. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  673 

youth.  In  agriculture  we  have  W.  C.  Edgar's  "  Study  of  a  Grain 
of  Wheat,"  which  is  suggestive,  extending  as  it  does  from  botany 
to  the  flour  mills,  wheat  pits,  markets,  etc. 


Technical  scientific  biology  should  wait  till  college,  for  as 
now  served  up  in  high-school  text-books  it  is  the  chief  enemy 
of  spontaneous  interest  in  natural  history.  The  animals  and 
plants  chosen  should  be:  (a)  those  nearest  and  best  known, 
(b)  those  of  chief  economic  interest  as  touching  human  life 
most  intimately,  and  (c)  those  whose  habits  and  instincts  are 
most  significant  for  the  child.  The  place  of  forms  of  life  in 
a  system  of  classification,  or  even  in  the  evolutionary  order, 
has  little  interest  and  violates  the  above  pedagogic  categories. 
Hence,  its  place  should  be  later.  We  should  use  the  house  fly, 
potato  bug,  spider,  caterpillar,  ant,  bee,  mosquito,  wasp,  but- 
terfly, snail,  earthworm,  hookworm,  gypsy  and  coddling  moth, 
toad,  frog,  rat,  mouse,  snake,  fish,  woodchuck,  squirrel,  coon, 
etc.  These  are  fit  and  proper  themes.  In  a  word,  agricultural 
education  should,  up  to  college  at  least,  keep  in  the  closest 
touch  with  nature  study.  Thus,  children  often  teach  teachers, 
make  real  contributions  to  science  if  rightly  directed.  A  girl 
of  eight,  e.  g.,  found  out  how  many  slugs  a  pair  of  bobwhites 
would  eat  in  a  day,  from  which  data  her  father  computed 
that  this  species  could  save  the  country  many  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars  annually.  Children  can  help  us  discover  what 
birds  should  be  protected  and  kept  from  extermination  and 
what  should  be  outlawed.  With  their  aid  it  was  estimated 
that  in  Nebraska  there  were  40,000,000  pairs  of  birds  consum- 
ing about  50.000  bushels  of  insects  daily  to  feed  themselves 
and  their  young.  Nature  is  a  complex  system  of  exquisitely 
balanced  forces,  and  when  one  species  becomes  ascendant 
or  descendant,  many  if  not  all  others,  at  least  in  its  vicinity, 
are  profoundly  affected.  Man  is  only  one  tncmbcr  of  this 
system,  and  it  now  depends  upon  his  hygienic  acumen  whether 
he  will  evolve  into  a  creature  vastly  superior  to  or  lapse  to 
one  inferior  to  what  he  now  is.  Whether  a  century  hence 
the  population  of  this  land  shall  number  one  and  a  quarter 
billion  people,  as  it  will  if  the  i)resent  rate  of  increase  keeps 
up,  or  shall  approximate  a  stationary  condition  ;  whether  the 
effectiveness  for  work,  culture,  morals  is  augiiientcd  or  de- 
44 


674  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

creases  is  today  for  the  most  part  a  question  of  dynamic 
biology,  for  we  must  not  forget  that  family  and  church,  state 
and  school  have  their  biological  bases.  Can  we  keep  down 
pests  and  pestilences,  weeds  and  bacteria  ?  Can  we  teach  vital 
things  and  not  those  that  make  life  a  burden  to  the  children, 
and  that  it  is  a  relief  to  them  to  forget?  Our  very  states- 
manship from  many  points  of  view  is  resolving  itself  into 
practical  biology,  and  this  in  its  last  analysis  is  chiefly  signifi- 
cant as  an  introduction  to  eugenics.  The  best  lesson  we  can 
learn  from  all  this  is  to  improve  the  quality  of  parenthood 
and  substitute  wherever  possible  vires  or  real  men  for  mere 
homines  or  human  beings,  whether  we*  can  keep  down  the 
human  weeds  and  vermin  and  advance  the  best  stirps  and 
families. 

Science  must  have  its  technic  of  methods,  formulae,  terms, 
and  its  representatives  must  always  talk  to  each  other  in  what 
seems  to  laymen  jargon.  It  has  been  said  that  professors  in 
some  fields  command  a  larger  vocabulary  of  technical  terms 
than  they  do  of  words  that  all  can  comprehend.  No  doubt 
there  is,  too,  in  some  a  burrowing  tendency  or  ink-fish  instinct 
to  hide  oneself  in  a  cloud  of  mystifying  language.  But  one 
test  of  a  real  teacher  is  the  ability  to  strip  off  all  these  aca- 
demic vestures  and  stand  forth  as  a  humanist  and  talk  in  the 
tongue  of  the  people  and  to  them,  and  tell  the  unschooled  and 
even  the  unlettered  the  best  things  they  know  and  work  for, 
and  thus  contribute  something  to  enrich  the  life  of  the  aver- 
age man.  This  inclination  should  be  strong  in  a  republic, 
where  majorities  and  public  sentiment  rule.  Chiefly,  how- 
ever, this  demand  should  be  felt  and  respected  in  those  sci- 
ences that  deal  with  the  supremely  practical  problems  of  life, 
health,  reproduction,  and  disease.  Academic  biology  is  just 
now  beginning  to  hear  and  to  answer  this  call,  and,  happily, 
to  its  own  great  benefit  as  well  as  that  of  the  public.  All  biol- 
ogy that  does  not  culminate  in  practical  anthropology  or  hu- 
maniculture  is  a  scientific  torso,  a  pedagogic  abortion.  Thus, 
to-day  the  real  test  of  a  student  of  biology  is  how  much  of  a 
humanist  he  is  made  by  his  work.  No  science  has  so  neg- 
lected its  utilities. 

As  to  industrial  education  for  girls,  the  chief  fact  that 
meets  us  is  that,  whereas  every  boy  expects  to  enter  some 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  675 

wage-earning  vocation  for  life,  hardly  a  girl  in  the  teens 
dreams  of  doing  so,  except  temporarily.  Her  ideal  is  to 
marry,  sooner  or  later,  and  be  supported,  and,  therefore,  she 
cannot  put  her  heart  into  a  trade.  Indeed,  to  do  so  suggests 
to  the  budding  girl  some  degree  of  renunciation  of  future 
wifehood  and  spells  some  elimination  of  romance  and  love 
from  her  life.  We  must  look  into  the  girl's  heart  to  fully 
understand  why,  although  she  crowds  into  every  open  door 
of  occupation  as  never  before,  she  so  generally  refuses  to  serve 
a  long  apprenticeship  needful  to  enter  the  skilled  crafts.  By 
the  end  of  the  grammar  grades  about  ninety-nine  out  of  every 
hundred  girls  leave  or  have  left  school.  Neglecting  these, 
the  good  shepherds  of  higher  education  have  focused  their 
attention  upon  the  one,  as  in  the  song  of  "  ninety  and  nine  " 
who  were  neglected  for  the  one  who  strayed  to  high  school 
or  college.  Those  girls  who  take  out  employment  tickets, 
whether  they  do  so  to  help  their  family,  to  dress  better,  or  to 
have  pin  money,  are  chiefly  interested  in  their  present  wage, 
week  by  week.  Woman  has  always  worked  and  always  will, 
but  the  capital  problem  is,  How  can  we  give  the  training  need- 
ful for  the  better-paid  industries  without  detriment  to  the 
prospects  of  marriage,  which  in  fact  comes  to  some  ninety- 
three  per  cent  of  her  sex  in  this  country  and  which  almost 
always  means  exemption  from  self-support,  since  in  fact  only 
six  per  cent  of  the  married  women  in  the  country  with  living 
husbands  are  wage  earners  ?  * 

Of  the  23.485,559  adult  women  in  the  United  States,  20.6  per  cent 
were  engaged  in  gainful  occupations.  There  were  some  16,700,000 
women  over  twenty-five  years  of  age,  of  whom  one  out  of  eleven 

'  See  Statistics  of  Women  at  Work.  Based  upon  the  census  of  1900.  Govern- 
ment Printing  Office,  Washington,  1907,  p.  399.  Sec  also  Dcvine,  E.  T. :  Social 
Forces.  New  York,  Charities  Publication  Committee,  1910.  226  p.  Carlton, 
F.  T.:  Educational  and  Industrial  Evolution.  New  York,  The  Macmillan  Co., 
J908.  320  p.  Marshall,  Florence  M.:  Industrial  Training  for  Women.  (Na- 
tional Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Industrial  Education,  Educ.  Bull.  No.  4), 
October,  1907.  59  p.  Rooper,  Thomas  Godolphin:  The  Tree  of  Knowledge  and 
the  Tree  of  Life.  In  Selected  Writings.  London,  Blackic,  1907.  293  p.,  pp.  156- 
163,  Report  of  the  National  Conference  on  Industrial  Training  of  Women  and 
Girls.  Held  in  the  Council  Chamber  of  the  Guildhall,  I>ondon,  October  6,  1908. 
Devine,  E.  T. :  The  Economic  Function  of  Woman.  .Vnnals  of  the  American 
Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science.     1895.     Vol.  v,  pp.  317-376.     Brandeis, 


676  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

had  been  married  and  yet  was  a  breadwinner.  Twenty  years  before, 
in  1880,  the  women  workers  in  the  United  States  numbered  2,353,988. 
Now,  had  this  number  grown  in  proportion  to  the  population,  it 
should  have  been  in  1900  only  3,557,689;  but  there  were  "recruiting 
stations  labeled  destitution  and  higher  standards  of  comfort,"  while 
more  women  for  whom  work  was  not  an  absolute  necessity  came 
in  to  win  economic  independence.  Hence,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
new  century  the  number  really  was  4,833,630.  Twenty  per  cent  of 
the  women  of  sixteen  years  of  age,  30.6  per  cent  between  fifteen 
and  twenty-seven,  and  18.8  per  cent  above  ten  years  of  age  were 
wage  earners.  In  1907  it  was  estimated  that  one  third  of  the  girls 
between  sixteen  and  twenty-four  were  working  for  pay.  It  is  un- 
fortunate that  this  census  schedule  does  not  distinguish  employers 
from  those  employed,  nor  work  done  at  home  from  that  done  in 
shop  or  factory.  Various  city  statistics  indicate  that  from  fifty  to 
seventy-nine  per  cent  of  the  girls  from  sixteen  to  twenty  are  earn- 
ing outside  the  home.  Besides  this,  many  from  fourteen  to  sixteen 
are  drifting  from  one  unskilled  occupation  to  another.  Florence 
Marshall  estimates  that  from  fifty  to  eighty  per  cent  of  women 
between  fourteen  and  twenty  work  outside  their  homes  for  wages, 
while  very  many  younger  ones  enter  juvenile  employments  that  unfit 
them  for  further  usefulness.  Hard  and  Dorr  estimate  that  in  the 
thirty  years  ending  1900,  while  the  population  of  the  United  States 
has  increased  ninety-five  per  cent,  the  women  workers  have  in- 
creased one  hundred  and  ninety  per  cent,  or  twice  as  fast.  Sixty- 
eight  per  cent  of  all  female  workers  are  single;  between  fifteen  and 
twenty,  thirty-two  per  cent  work;  from  twenty-one  to  twenty-four, 
thirty  per  cent;  from  twenty-five  to  thirty-four,  nineteen  per  cent, 
and  the  proportion  thereafter  declines.     In  1905  there  were  393,691 

Louis  D.,  assisted  by  Josephine  Goldmark:  Women  in  Industry.  Decision 
of  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court  in  Curt  Muller  vs.  State  of  Oregon,  Upholding  the 
constitutionality  of  the  Oregon  lo-hour  law  for  women  and  brief  for  the  State  of 
Oregon.  Reprinted  for  the  National  Consimiers'  League.  New  York.  1907. 
122  p.  Part  I  of  the  Annual  Report  for  1905.  Industrial  Education  of  Working 
Girls.  Boston,  Wright  &  Potter  Printing  Co.,  1905,  pp.  1-38.  (The  Massa- 
chusetts Bureau  of  Statistics  and  Labor.)  Technical  Education  for  Women  and 
Girls  at  Home  and  Abroad.  Pub.  by  The  Women's  Industrial  Council,  64  p. 
Cadbury,  Edward,  Matheson,  M.  Cecile,  and  Shann,  George:  Women's  Work  and 
Wages.  London,  Unwin,  1906.  368  p.  Kilboum,  Katherine  R. :  Money-making 
Occupations  for  Women.  2d  ed.  Washington,  Neale  Pub.  Co.,  1901.  177  p. 
The  Fingerpost.  A  guide  to  professions  for  educated  women,  with  information 
as  to  necessary  training.  Pub.  by  the  Central  Bureau  for  the  Employment  of 
Women.  1906.  244  p.  Richardson,  Anna  Steese:  The  Girl  who  Earns  Her 
Own  Living.  New  York,  Dodge,  1909.  283  p.  Willett,  Mabel  Hurd:  The  Em- 
ployment of  Women  in  the  Clothing  Trade.  Columbia  University  Thesis,  N.  Y., 
1902.  206  p.  Industrial  Education  of  Working  Girls.  Mass.  Bureau  Statistics  of 
Labor.  1905.  Talbot,  Marion:  The  Education  of  Women.  Univ.  of  Chicago 
Press,  1910.     255  p. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  677 

working  women  in  Massachusetts,  who  worked  on  the  average  about 
seven  years.  A  Boston  trade  school  circular  estimates  12,000  girls 
from  fourteen  to  sixteen  working  in  that  state.  The  middle-class 
woman  has  new  ideals  to-day  of  commercial  independence.  Marriage 
and  fecundity  are  in  general  inversely  as  opportunity  for  employ- 
ment outside  the  home,  the  integrity  of  which  is  now  so  threatened. 
This  means,  too,  a  social  revolution.  About  one  fifth  of  the  married 
women  in  industry  are  widows,  many  of  whom  have  to  support 
themselves  and  their  children.  One  seventh  of  the  adult  women 
of  our  cities  are  wage  earners  outside  of  the  home.  Single  women 
of  American  parentage  contribute  less  to  the  family  income  than 
do  those  of  foreign-born  parents.  Of  the  total  number  of  women 
employed,  eighty-five  per  cent  are  single  and  forty-four  per  cent  are 
between  sixteen  and  twenty-four.  The  large  proportion  of  these 
were,  as  girls,  quite  too  poor  to  indulge  in  the  luxury  of  industrial 
education. 

Of  the  303  industries  noted  in  our  census,  women  are  employed 
in  295,  or  all  but  8,  although  the  majority  of  them  are  found  in 
less  than  a  dozen.  Men  are  found  in  every  feminine  occupation. 
There  are,  for  instance,  4,800  men  "  seamstresses."  Most  of  the 
great  industries  and  nearly  all  of  those  in  which  women  are  found 
are  subdivided,  often  minutely,  and  where  this  is  done  women  are 
found  in  the  unskilled  lines.  In  the  factories  they  are  packers, 
sorters,  etc. ;  in  the  mills  they  are  doffers  and  spinners.  In  making 
shoes  and  gloves  they  stitch,  glue,  sew  on  buttons,  but  are  rarely  last- 
ers,  cutters,  designers,  or  drawers-in.  Even  where  food  products  and 
confectionery  are  made,  they  are  very  rarely  more  than  semiskilled. 
The  effects  of  untrained  women  upon,  e.  g.,  dressmaking  means 
deterioration  of  the  product.^  Our  stores  are  flooded  with  garments 
poorly  made  and  designed  and  tasteless.  Very  many  of  our  models 
come  from  abroad.  We  doubtless  have  talent,  but  no  apparatus  for 
discovering  it.  This  means  constant  shifting  and  breaking-in  new 
workers  and  waste.  Girls  do  not  know  where  they  will  be  six  months 
hence,  but  they  want  their  five  or  six  dollars  a  week  now.  Some 
firms  lose  one  quarter  of  their  girls  every  year  and  employ  two 
teachers  to  break  in  new  ones.  A  few  employ  men  at  a  larger 
wage  because  they  will  stay. 

Thus,  although  we  obscure  or  almost  seek  to  obliterate 
sex  distinctions  in  the  school,  they  almost  smite  our  boys  and 
g-iris  in  the  face  tiie  moment  they  emerge  to  enter  industrial 
life.  The  mere  fact  that  Ixnh  sexes  are  found  in  nearly  all 
callings  is  utterly  misleading,  and  instead  of  suggesting  equal- 
ity, teaches  progressive  differentiation  of  departments,  kinds  of 

•  Marshall,  Florence  M.:  Indu.Htrial  Training  of  Women.  Annals  of  the  Am. 
Acad.  Pol.  Sci.,  January,  1909.     Vol.  ^3,  pp.  119-26. 


678  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

work,  ways  of  doing  it,  degrees  of  efficiency,  and  these  diver- 
sities are  increasing.  In  factories,  men  are  more  and  more 
employed  in  one  process  and  women  in  another,  and  this  in- 
creases with  the  progressive  and  now,  from  the  standpoint  of 
humaniculture,  intolerable  subdivision  of  labor.  Thus  it  is  an 
error,  although  a  very  common  one,  to  infer  that  men  and 
women  in  a  given  industry  are  doing  the  same  things  in  the 
same  way.  Nevertheless,  we  are  making  real  progress,  though 
in  a  slow  and  blundering  way,  toward  an  economic  condition 
where  men  and  women  will  each  be  found  doing  just  the 
things  they  can  do  best.  In  an  interesting  symposium  ^  it  is 
stated  that  the  reason  why  women  have  followed  their  own 
industries  from  the  home  into  the  shop  is  in  the  increased  cost 
of  living.  This  doubtless  does  interfere  with  marriage  and 
contributes  something,  unconfessed  and  unconscious  though  it 
be,  to  increased  aversion  to  wifehood  and  motherhood,  espe- 
cially now  when  to  many  of  the  very  best  young  women  wed- 
lock is  a  realm  full  of  doubts  and  fears.  They  have  only  too 
much  reason  as  they  look  about  to  falter  before  making  the 
experiment.  Their  entrance  upon  industry  has  individualized 
them.  "  The  time  is  past  when  she  can  be  made  to  sink  what 
she  regards  as  her  own  personal  interest  in  that  of  the  race." 
"  One  of  the  chief  dangers  to  which  unmarried  women  who 
are  not  overworked  are  exposed  is  the  tendency  to  become 
eccentric,  whimsical,  casuistic,  or  cranky,  and  a  single  woman 
of  forty  or  over  who  has  kept  her  ideas  and  sense  of  propor- 
tion is  a  vastly  superior,  if  a  very  rare,  person."  The  woman 
in  business,  even  if  she  does  lose  a  trifle  of  the  old  charm 
and  innocency  and  seem  a  little  mannish  to  conservative  men, 
is  probably  less  likely  to  go  wrong  than  her  idle  sisters. 
Woman  is  man's  superior  in  her  own  sphere,  but  is  not  his 
equal  in  his.  In  industry  she  can  escape  chaperonage,  which 
the  American  girl  hates.  She  also  often  escapes  the  hum- 
drum of  home  and  domestic  duties,  but  her  health  is  jeopard- 
ized more  by  the  pace  than  the  load  and  the  lack  of  wholesome 
recreation,  for  it  is  not  hard  work  but  excitement  that  is  to 
be  feared.      Servant  girls,   nurses,  teachers  can   keep  pretty 

>  The  Place  of  Women  in  the  Modem  Business  World  as  affecting  Home  Life, 
the  Marital  Relation,  Health,  Morality,  the  Future  of  the  Race.  Bulletin  of 
American  Academy  of  Medicine,  October,  1908. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  679 

well  and  do  much  work,  but  we  are  now  developing  unique 
types  in  shop,  telephone,  and  other  classes  of  girl  employees 
who  rarely  lay  up  money  and  who  want  both  men's  and  wom- 
en's rights  and  to  escape  the  duties  of  both. 

The  industrial  field  is  always  changing.  Since  1870  men  telegra- 
phers have  increased  six-,  but  women  twenty-fold.  Nearly  all  suc- 
cessful business  women  rise  from  the  ranks,  and  have  started  with 
not  more  than  six  dollars  a  week.  The  college  girl,  like  the  boy, 
needs  to  begin  at  the  bottom.  We  can  only  snapshot  the  present 
moment,  so  rapid  are  the  changes.  Servants  and  waitresses,  in  the 
thirty  years  ending  1900,  increased  less  than  six  per  cent,  while 
boarding-  and  lodginghouse  keepers  increased  742  per  cent.  Women 
in  professional  services  in  these  thirty  years  increased  from  92,000 
to  430,000;  in  transportation  from  20,000  to  503,000.  Girls  are 
especially  prone  to  pick  up  odd  jobs  where  they  can  learn  speed 
quickly,  like  warping  braid,  sorting  silk,  tying  fringe,  taking  out 
and  putting  in  buttons  in.  a  laundry,  dipping  candy,  and  assorting 
things.  Moreover,  expert  work  is  almost  always  in  the  hands  of 
men  and  is  protected  by  their  unions,  from  which  women  are  ex- 
cluded and  have  very  few  of  their  own.  Girls  lack  serious  attitudes 
in  their  work,  hate  responsibility,  can  adjust  to  cheap  modes  of  living, 
and  can  do  very  monotonous  work.  The  latter  brings  apathy  and 
tends  to  carelessnc^:s  of  moral  and  physical  standards,  and  as  a  reac- 
tion impels  her  to  seek  amusements  and  excitements  evenings,  even 
though  it  be  dear.  She  does  not  realize  that  in  fact  matrimony  is 
better  paid  and  probably,  on  the  whole,  easier  than  any  other  voca- 
tion open  to  woman,  and  that  it  would  be  better  paid  yet  were  it 
recognized  as  a  business  and  carefully  learned  and  studied  like  that 
of  a  nurse.' 

Girls  used  to  be  indentured,  apprenticed,  or  bound  out  like  boys 
till  eighteen  or  twenty-one,  or  till  marriage.  In  these  old  colonial 
days  it  was  often  specified  that  such  girls  should  be  taught  to  read. 
A  servant  who  could  spin  or  weave  earned  more.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  last  century  many  women  not  only  made  wines  or  preserves  or 
kept  shop,  but  knit,  spun,  wove,  and  perhaps  sold  their  products. 
In  many  places  work  was  put  out  to  them,  supplies  being  given  and 
prmlucts  taken  back,  especially  weaving,  spinning,  and  palm-leaf 
hat  braiding,  pay  being  sometimes  given  in  goods  from  the  store. 
Lace  was  made  in  this  fashion ;  so  were  woolen  cards,  teeth  being 
set  by  hand.  Much  factory  work  was  thus  "  given  out."  In  the 
eighteenth  century  many  women  were  comjxisitnrs.  both  of  books 
and  newspapers.  The  greatest  depression  in  cotton,  woolen,  silk, 
and  boots  was  in  1870,  and  it  was  then  that  tlio  |)cTc'entagc  of  women 

'See  in  F.vcryJxKly's  Magazine  a  scries  of  articles,  "The  Woman's  Invasion," 
November,  190S,  to  .April,  1909. 


68o  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

employed  was  the  largest.  In  the  early  days  of  the  factory  system 
there  was  no  prejudice  against  women,  and  no  social  problem.  In 
colonial  days  the  courts  required  that  every  woman  should  keep 
employed.  When  Harriet  Martineau  visited  this  country  in  1836, 
she  found  women  in  seven  chief  occupations,  though  they  were 
employed  more  or  less  in  nearly  a  hundred,  the  shoe  industry  being 
a  close  second  to  cotton  mills.  But  even  then  the  working  women 
were  unorganized,  exploited,  and  lived  in  ways  known  only  to  the 
poor.  Miss  Abbot  ^  says  that  in  the  early  days  of  the  cotton  mills 
women  at  first  did  what  had  originally  been  girls'  work,  but  for 
the  last  three  quarters  of  a  century  operatives  here  have  increased 
less  than  the  rate  of  population.  It  is  difficult  to  find  all  the  reasons 
for  this  slow  but  sure  pressure.  One  was  a  new  machine  for  yarn 
spinning,  the  slasher,  in  1866,  which  made  more  men  needful.  From 
1825  to  1850,  in  Lowell,  the  city  of  spindles,  Lucy  Larcom  and 
many  bright  Yankee  girls  worked  and  published  the  Lowell  Offering. 
This  life  was  a  rather  select  industrial  school  for  girls,  who  went 
from  the  farms  and  returned  with  money,  better  dresses,  manners, 
and  more  intelligence.  They  were  obliged  to  attend  church,  pay  a 
small  fee,  retired  at  a  certain  time,  could  not  walk  beyond  bounds, 
food  was  prescribed,  and  to  all  this  and  to  the  company  stores  the 
girls  submitted.  They  often  paid  oflf  home  mortgages,  listened  to 
lectures  by  Emerson,  Adams,  and  Everett.  There  were  improvement 
circles,  loan  libraries,  missionary  and  debating  clubs.  Girls  were 
discharged  for  reading  the  Bible  in  the  mills.  At  one  time  there 
were  150  who  had  been  teachers;  most  were  between  sixteen  and 
twenty-five.  The  death  rate  was  low,  and  it  was  a  badge  of  respect 
to  have  worked  here.  Now  only  eight  per  cent  of  the  operatives 
are  of  native  parentage.  In  the  cotton  mills  of  the  country  in 
1850  there  were  two  women  to  every  man;  in  1900  there  were  more 
men  than  women. 

In  Everybody's  Magazine  for  January,  1909,  it  is  shown  how 
social  distinctions  have  driven  "  Maggie  "  from  the  factory  to  be- 
come "  Miss  "  in  the  department  store  at  a  sacrifice  of  from  three 
to  five  dollars  a  week.  By  half  past  eight,  in  Chicago,  25,000  women 
are  at  work,  20,000  of  them  in  department  stores.  Early  in  the 
morning  girls  who  have  worked  all  night  in  the  telephone  exchanges 
and  restaurants,  going  home  from  their  night  shifts,  meet  factory 
girls  who  must  be  on  duty  at  seven.  "  Salesladies "  are  a  unique 
and  rather  monotonous  type.  A  store  gets  for  six  dollars  those 
who  could  earn  ten  in  the  shoe  factory,  and  a  worn-out  glove  girl 
will  give  up  eight  dollars  and  a  half  to  begin  in  a  store  for  five. 
These  girls  have  much  style  and  energy,  considerable  social  life, 
pick  out  their  lunch ;  there  may  be  a  piano  in  the  storeroom ;  and 
more  than  half  of  them  are  of  American  parentage.  '  A  six-dollar 

'  Abbot,  Edith:  History  of  the  Employment  of  Women  in  the  American  Cotton 
Mills.  Jour,  of  Pol.  Econ.,  Nov.  and  Dec,  1908.  Vol.  16,  pp.  602-621  and  680-692. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  68i 

girl  perhaps  sleeps  in  a  room  with  three  others,  at  $2.75  a  week 
for  bed,  breakfast,  and  dinner.  She  washes  most  of  her  clothes 
at  the  club  laundry  for  five  cents  an  hour,  and  can  haunt  bargain 
counters,  with  perhaps  $1.55  a  week  to  spare.  She  very  likely 
reads,  goes  to  lectures,  theaters,  is  generally  straight  and  pure,  so 
that  the  department  store  is  often  a  climax  of  this  girl's  social 
ambitions,  although  she  remains  here  usually  but  a  few  years. 
At  a  pinch  she  can  always  fall  back  upon  domestic  service,  "  in 
which  no  degree  of  incompetence  is  a  bar  "  to  her  employment. 

In  trades  with  a  little  expertness  there  is  often  a  long  slack 
season,  so  that,  as  Odencrantz  ^  showed,  this  is  the  chief  cause  of 
irregularity  of  employment.  One  quarter  of  221  graduates  of  trade 
schools  had  given  up  their  trades  and  taken  to  steadier  work  at 
a  lower  wage.  About  two  thirds  of  the  female  operatives  in  New 
York  work  on  goods  that  have  a  seasonal  and  irregular  demand,  at 
a  wage  of  about  six  dollars  per  week.  This  is  the  case  with  mil- 
linery and  machine  straw  hat  making  and  many  forms  of  novelty 
work.  Some  supplement  by  another  industry  which  is  in  while  the 
first  is  out  of  season.  Girls  are  more  readily  discharged  than  men 
because  they  are  less  unionized.  Men's  unions  are  in  general  hos- 
tile to  women.  It  is  often  said  that  every  one  employed  leaves  a 
man  without  a  job.  Still  the  union  has  always  stood  for  the  same 
wage  scale,  while  in  England  it  advocates  twenty-five  per  cent  less 
for  women.  A  half-serious  article  calls  women  "  the  white  China- 
men of  the  industrial  world."  "  She  wears  a  coiled-up  queue,  and 
wherever  she  goes  she  cheapens  the  worth  of  labor."  In  one  case 
a  strong  girl  operating  heavy  machinery  in -a  hardware  factory 
superseded  her  father  at  half  his  pay,  and  doing  twice  the  work  he 
did.  In  1890  the  wrapper-classer  in  cigar  factories  received  twelve 
dollars  a  week,  but  during  the  following  decade  he  was  succeeded 
by  women  at  six  dollars.  She  is  not  paid  at  the  same  rate  even  in 
proportion  to  her  skill  or  intelligence,  but  always  approximates  a 
fixed  low  level.  In  Birmingham,  in  a  bicycle  factory  employing 
eighty  men,  sixty  were  discharged  and  ordered  to  send  their  wives 
back  to  take  their  places.  A  man  who  has  spent  two  years  in 
learning  a  trade  cannot  compete  with  his  eighteen-year-old  girl  who 
spends  two  months  in  learning  a  job.^ 

It  is  tragic  that  married  women,  especially  mothers,  must 
leave  home  I0  work,  for  their  influence  upon  children  is  more 

•  New  York  Census  of  Manufacturers,  1905,  Bulletin  93. 

'  Fall  River  is  the  chief  .\mcrican  cotton  town,  where  more  white  women  arc 
working  in  projxirtion  than  in  any  other  place  save  Ix)weII.  another  cotton  town, 
and  where  more  white  babies  are  dyinR  proportionately  than  in  any  other  city  in 
the  Union  save  Biddcford,  Maine,  another  cotton  town.  While  in  the  United 
States  at  large  about  21  women  in  every  100  are  workinR,  in  Fall  River  it  is  45 
out  of  xoo.      Between  the  ages  of  16  and  20,  78  per  cent  earn  in  Fall  River.     Work 


682  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

than  that  of  teacher  and  father  combined.  Speciahzation  has 
given  her  a  secure  place,  but  it  is  too  near  the  bottom  of  the 
industrial  scale.  Its  effects  upon  the  father,  too,  seem  bad, 
for  statistics  show  that  more  men  whose  wives  go  out  to  work 
drink,  although  we  cannot  yet  surely  distinguish  cause  and 
effect.  A  man  who  cannot  support  his  family  must  suffer  in 
self-respect.  As  yet  we  have  almost  no  laws  in  any  state  pre- 
scribing the  length  of  time  before  or  after  confinement  when 
women  must  abstain  from  outside  work.  Again,  all  medical 
authorities  agree  that  one  of  the  prime  hygienic  needs  of 
woman  is  a  period  of  monthly  rest,  and  this  no  industry  per- 
mits. In  the  old  home  occupations  she  could  regulate  her 
work,  but  not  under  modern  conditions.  This  cannot  fail  to 
cause  subtle  and  progressive  deterioration.  Never  in  all  her 
history  has  she  been  so  situated  that  she  had  no  control  over 
her  health  and  comfort  in  this  respect.  In  occupations  which 
require  strain  of  nerve  and  brain  that  are  unwholesome,  in- 
volve hard  muscular  work  and  prolonged  standing  so  often 
required  of  salesgirls,  for  instance,  that  they  seem  alert  to 
customers,  and  that  involve  special  regimen  for  the  feet  until 
they  are  accustomed  to  it,  this  wastage  is  incalculable.  All 
this  is  particularly  hard  on  girls  in  the  early  teens  whose  lunar 
regularity  has  not  been  fully  established  and  while  the  devel- 

begins  at  6.30  A.M.  when  the  blazing  lights  are  turned  on,  and  one  minute  later 
everything  is  going.  Every  minute  of  the  working  day  Fall  River  makes  two 
miles  of  cotton  cloth.  Every  Saturday  afternoon  the  girls  crowd  the  sidewalks 
and  stores.  Just  now  in  the  lower  forms  of  mill  work  the  Portuguese  are  driving 
out  the  French  Canadians,  as  they  did  the  Irish  and  they  did  Yankees.  The  weave- 
room  girls  dress  with  taste  and  look  down  on  the  spinners.  Of  10,274  cotton 
workers  here,  the  parents  of  only  345  were  bom  in  the  United  States.  This  means 
distance  and  often  antagonism  between  capital  and  labor.  The  working  week 
is  now  58  hours  in  place  of  81  as  formerly.  The  improvements  that  have  been 
effected  are  largely  due  to  the  presence  of  women,  for  when  they  stop  working 
men  must  stop,  so  their  presence  here  has  lifted  the  weight  of  excessive  toil  from 
men.  But  the  tension  is  increased.  Instead  of  one  loom,  now  from  six  to  twenty 
may  be  tended  by  a  single  person,  with  a  piercing  monotonous  noise  that  never 
slacks.  The  speed  tenders  work  in  rooms  full  of  cotton  dust  and  with  tropical 
heat  and  moisture.  The  effects  of  this  substitution  of  the  power  loom  for  the  hand 
loom  are  seen  in  that  whereas  in  1900  in  the  registration  arrears  of  the  United 
States  out  of  every  1,000  babies  under  one  year  of  age  165  died,  in  Fall  River  it 
was  305,  where  the  mortality  was  greater  than  in  any  other  city  except  Biddeford, 
where  it  was  311.  In  Providence,  less  than  one  fourth  of  the  deaths  were  of 
children  under  five;  in  Fall  River  it  was  more  than  one  half. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  683 

opment  of  all  the  organs  and  functions  involved  in  reproduc- 
tion is  most  rapid. 

A  number  of  excellent  general  surveys  of  occupations  open 
to  women  have  lately  been  made,  such  as  those  of  Miss  Kil- 
bourn,  Miss  Richardson,  and  in  England  in  the  Finger  Post 
by  some  two  score  authors,  and  the  best  industrial  schools  for 
girls  aid  them  in  at  least  avoiding  bad  and  often  in  deciding 
on  and  starting  in  suitable  trades.  Women  are  also  now  rap- 
idly finding  or  making  new  positions  for  themselves  among 
the  subdivisions  of  labor,  and  sometimes  creating  new  callings 
for  their  sex.  As  they  advance  in  the  twenties  or  thirties 
they  often  display  great  ingenuity  and  originality  in  devising 
novel  products  and  kinds  of  service.  Never  was  it  so  apparent 
to  the  world  that  there  are  a  vast  number  of  things  in  which 
women  can  far  excel  men  as  in  the  industrial  phase  of  the 
"  war  of  sex  against  sex."  Woman  should,  of  course,  give 
special  attention  to  these,  and  one  vital  part  of  her  industrial 
training,  and  that  at  an  early  stage  of  it,  should  be  given  to 
a  wide  comparative  view  of  the  diflferent  callings  open  to  her. 
The  employment  and  vocational  bureau  function  should  be 
magnified.  Naturally  she  does  not  take  to  specialization  as 
readily  or  as  early  as  man.  Yet  in  many  of  the  highly  com- 
plex industries  she  finds  herself  doing  a  single  small  and 
monotonous  thing  all  day  that  is  dwarfing  and  destroying  to 
her  body  and  soul,  for  work  that  is  automatic  and  does  not 
occupy  the  mind  is,  as  has  often  been  pointed  out,  in  many 
ways  deteriorating.  To  take  an  extreme  case,  in  Chicago, 
where  women  fix  wooden  handles  to  the  metal  shanks  of  screw- 
drivers, they  must  make  750  push-kicks  per  hour.  Surely  in- 
dustry should  not  so  ill-use  woman  as  to  return  her  to  society 
a  neuter  or  a  semi-invalid. 

In  the  Pittsburg  stogie  factories  (Miss  E.  Butler's  Pittsburg 
Survey)  the  girl  does  not  make  a  whole  stogie.  She  is  a  bunch- 
breaker,  filler,  or  binder,  or  works  at  the  suction  table.  Two  girls 
and  three  machines  now  do  what  one  man  did  before,  very  much 
faster  and  cheaper.  And  this  involves  a  social  change,  for  "  woman 
has  not  risen  to  man's  skill ;  skill  has  been  lowered  to  woman's 
level.  Woman  has  not  been  masculinized ;  work  has  been  femin- 
ized." "  Women  enter  the  factories  usually  as  adjuncts  to  simplified 
machines  and  subdivided  tasks."  Again,  there  are  almost  no  women 
watchmakers  who  can  put  a  whole  watch  together  and  make  it  go, 


684  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

yet  women  watch  workers  are  rapidly  increasing.  Their  speed  and 
precision  are  remarkable.  In  a  cardboard  factory,  where  a  box 
must  be  bent  ten  times,  i,8oo  are  made  in  a  nine-hour  day.  Woman's 
capacity  for  doing  such  things  seems  almost  superhuman.  In  1900 
41,294  women  were  employed  on  watches,  forty  per  cent  of  all 
employees,  but  a  large  influx  from  Bohemia,  the  invention  of  ma- 
chinery, the  greater  docility  of  women,  are  factors.^  In  most  fac- 
tories speed,  strain,  and  nervous  tension  increase,  and  this,  taken 
in  connection  with  the  instability  of  woman's  nervous  system,  is  a 
very  grievous  evil.  Telephone  girls  on  duty  for  five  hours  often 
suffer  from  nervous  debility,  for  this  is  harder  than  teaching.  A 
physician  says  "  after  four  or  five  years  many  of  these  girls  leave 
the  service  and  marry,  but  they  often  break  down  and  have  nervous 
children,"  so  that  the  physical  racial  cost  of  woman's  work  is  great. 
Many  women  workers  rise  very  early,  take  wretchedly  inadequate 
breakfasts,  have  very  short  hours  for  lunch ;  if  their  work  is  seden- 
tary and  monotonous,  abdominal  and  pelvic  organs  are  liable  to  lose 
their  tone,  the  chest  to  grow  flat,  and  recuperative  power  to  abate. 
England  has  effected  much  amelioration  in  this  kind  of  work  by  a 
system  of  medical  examinations.  After  a  rush  period,  with  over- 
time work,  doctors  report  an  increase  of  from  one  third  to  one 
half  in  their  patients  from  this  class.  Surely  an  eight-hour  day  is 
enough  for  women,  and  yet  there  are  to-day  many  factory  girls 
of  sixteen  working  thirteen  hours. 

Another  curious  point  has  arisen  here.  A  court  has  de- 
clared that  the  law  has  no  right  to  dictate  to  what  extent  the 
capacity  to  labor  may  be  exercised  by  those  who  have  this 
commodity  to  dispose  of.  Yet  New  York  forbids  factory 
work  after  nine  at  night  for  women.  Should  it  make  any 
difiference  if  she  is  a  willing  worker?  Some  claim  that  the 
right  to  work  when,  where,  and  as  one  pleases  ought  to  be 
as  inalienable  as  the  article  that  no  person  shall  be  deprived 
of  life,  liberty,  or  the  pursuit  of  happiness  without  due  process 
of  law.  Labor  is  property,  and  the  right  to  sell  it  is  liberty. 
In  September,  1906,  at  Berne,  fourteen  nations  made  a  con- 
certed effort  to  relegate  women  to  their  old  positions  as  de- 
pendent state  wards  by  abolishing  most  night  work,  and  in 
1874  Massachusetts  led  this  country  in  restricting  the  hours 
which  women  should  work  in  certain  industries.  Seventeen 
states  do  this  to-day,  twelve  forbid  work  in  mines,  five  regu- 
late their  handling  of  dangerous  machinery,  six  the  amount 

*  Butler,  Elizabeth   Beardsley:   Women   in   the   Trades.     Pittsburg,  i907-8« 
N.  Y.     Charities  Publication  Committee,  1909. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  685 

of  time  for  their  midday  meal,  thirty-one  compel  employers 
to  supply  seats,  and  twelve  require  decent  toilet  facilities. 
Shifts  every  three  to  five  hours  have  also  been  enforced.  This 
kind  of  legislation  has  been  declared  constitutional  in  several 
states. 

The  first  law  of  this  kind  here  in  1844  applied  to  men  as  well 
as  women.  Many  old  abuses,  at  any  rate,  are  thus  being  remedied, 
such  as  flax  spinning,  where  women  still  often  work  with  bare  feet, 
with  the  flying  whirlers  spraying  water  upon  their  breasts,  pro- 
tected only  by  a  burlap  waist,  and  where  they  work  in  great  heat 
and  their  clothes  are  so  steam  drenched  that  when  they  put  them 
on  at  night  there  is  great  danger  of  colds,  as  of  mill  fevers  where 
the  air  is  charged  with  dust  and  suction  machines  are  not  enforced. 
Sweating  has  been  greatly  abated,  and  yet  sewing  girls  on  piece  work 
often  eye  the  clock  at  every  pause,  and  are  tense  if  they  fall  behind 
their  pace  till  they  have  caught  up.  So  in  sorting  letters,  if  the 
piece  rate  is  cut  down  twenty  per  cent  one  must  do  in  four  minutes 
what  was  done  in  five.  The  power  to  perform  this  rapid  monotonous 
work  at  maximal  speed  lasts  but  a  few  years,  and  the  fast  workers 
soon  lose  their  pace.  Only  the  wiser  ones  quit  racing  and  realize 
that  whatever  they  make  above  a  certain  sum  goes  to  the  doctor. 
A  glove  speeder  who  turned  out  five  dozen  a  day  at  $2.50  caused 
a  cut  in  the  wages,  but  it  was  said  that  the  extra  money  was 
refunded  to  her  for  speeding  up  the  room. 

Florence  Marshall  urges  that  work  that  occupies  thought 
is  a  very  precious  safeguard  against  evil  at  an  age  when  some- 
thing in  life  must  be  found  that  is  intensely  interesting  and 
exercises  the  mental  powers.  Those  who  take  up  unskilled 
work  with  no  chance  of  advancement  and  live  on  wretched 
wages  are  almost  certain  some  time  to  meet  the  tempter,  and 
perhaps  to  do  so  often.  All  these  experiences  render  them 
unfit  just  in  those  qualities  that  make  for  maternity  and  do- 
mesticity. Subdivision  of  labor  not  only  means  deterioration 
of  producers,  but  it  gives  "  industry  and  the  civilization  that 
rests  on  it  an  unstable  basis."  Women  now  buy  many  things 
that  they  once  made.  On  the  other  hand,  we  luust  not  forget 
that  some  industries  have  a  high  intellectual  and  moral  value, 
and  \V.  I.  Thomas  thinks  that  man's  education  in  general 
should  Ije  more  occupational  and  gainful.  He  thinks  every 
mother  should  be  relieved  of  her  children  and  they  of  her  for 
some  portion  of  the  day.  There  is  now  a  National  Woman's 
Union   League,  under   Mrs.    R.   Robbins,  with  an  orgruu'zer, 


686  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

Miss  Fitzgerald,  and  Miss  Agnes  Nestor,  the  latter  one  of 
the  most  striking  figures  of  a  new  type,  the  genuine  working 
woman  leader.  She  has  worked  in  every  glove  department, 
and  now  drives  bargains  with  the  employers,  shows  them 
their  interest,  and  they  listen  to  her.  Because  women  stay  so 
short  a  time  they  submit  to  abuses,  and  if  the  latter  were 
removed  they  would  stay  longer.  When  trades  are  so  care- 
fully studied  that  they  can  be  marked  on  a  scale  of  healthful- 
ness  for  girls  there  will  be  a  great  gain.  London  has  a  sys- 
tem of  municipal  employment  for  unemployed  women.  There 
should  be  more  of  this,  so  great  is  the  demand  for  domestic 
servants,  but  London  has  now  three  workrooms  open  to 
women  who  may  be  sent  there  by  any  of  twenty-nine  distress 
committees.  The  maximum  period  is  sixteen  weeks  at  a  time; 
the  market  for  their  products  is,  of  course,  an  artificial  one, 
and  their  earnings  are  determined  by  the  number  of  depend- 
ent children,  i.  e.,  ten  shillings  a  week  for  herself,  two  more 
for  the  first  child  under  fourteen,  one  shilling  sixpence  for 
the  second,  and  one  shilling  each  for  the  remaining  children 
under  that  age,  with  a  deduction  of  one  fourth  for  the  earn- 
ings of  each  child  over  fourteen.  These  women  are  given 
dinner,  tea,  carfare,  and  work  forty-eight  hours  a  week.  The 
work  is  tailoring  and  hand  knitting.  It  is  hard  to  make  in- 
competent old  ladies  from  forty  to  sixty,  some  of  whom  are 
unhelpable  and  have  never  used  a  needle,  really  earn  much. 
The  few  industries  that  find  it  profitable  to  employ  girls  just 
out  of  school  pay  wretched  wages  and  get  incompetent  and 
imreliable  help.  Many  of  these  industries  need  almost  no 
training  at  all.  Lidustrial  schools  for  girls  must  take  great 
pains  in  selecting  the  industries  for  w'hich  they  fit.  The  best 
trades  for  their  purpose  are  those,  as  Mary  S.  Woolman  says, 
which  require  expertness,  employ  large  numbers,  which  are 
hard  to  learn  in  the  workshop,  which  pay  good  wages,  offer 
promotion  on  merit,  with  favorable  sanitary  conditions.  Girls 
seem  to  be  more  sensitive  to  these  than  boys.  According  to 
one  estimate,  the  very  least  desirable  industries  for  women 
employ  nineteen  per  cent  of  them,^  while  the  more  desirable 


'  Marshall,  F.  M.:  Industrial  Training  for  Women.     Natl.  Soc.  for  Promotion 
of  Industrial  Education.     Bulletin  No.  4,  1907.     59  p. 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  687 

group,  such  as  the  manufacture  of  cloth,  clothes,  shoes,  hats, 
jewelry,  printing  and  publishing,  employ  some  sixty  per  cent 
of  the  more  or  less  skilled.  Some  now  advocate  that  women 
should  be  excluded  from  the  first  or  lowest  class.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  at  least  three  fourths  of  the  younger  girls  enter 
the  more  undesirable  industries.  Surely,  if  the  average  girl 
works  for  five  years,  we  ought  to  do  something  to  fit  her  to 
do  so,  and  probably  such  training  would  pay  from  a  purely 
mercantile  point  of  view. 

The  best  European  countries  surpass  us.  Technical  education 
for  girls  in  France  began  in  1856  and  the  first  professional  school 
was  opened  in  1864.  Both  these  types  seek  to  turn  out  elite  young 
workmen,  require  an  entrance  examination,  careful  study  in  the 
morning,  and  training  in  the  afternoon.  A  wide  variety  of  indus- 
tries is  taught.  Most  girls  trained  in  this  system  become  cither 
forewomen  or  teachers  of  their  craft.  There  are  now  six  municipal 
schools  for  the  technical  training  of  girls  in  Paris,  which  fit  either 
for  trade  or  business.  The  chief  obstacle  here  comes  from  em- 
ployers, who  do  not  see  the  advantage  of  developing  all-around 
capacity,  but  want  one-branch  apprentices,  although  it  is  overwhelm- 
ingly proven  that  these  do  not  "  arrive."  All  depends  upon  the 
teachers.  Girls  often  enter  as  early  as  twelve.  Not  only  instruction 
is  given,  but  there  are  often  scholarships,  midday  meals,  and  clothes 
to  those  who  need  them.  The  pupil  must  not  look  to  the  school  as 
an  employment  agency  to  help  her  in  finding  a  position,  but  must 
trust  to  her  own  merits.  When  the  women's  societies  in  Germany 
established  both  extension  classes  and  industrial  schools,  the  Lctte 
Vcrein  (Berlin,  1866)  assumed  control.  In  Baden  every  girl  of 
fourteen  who  earns  a  living  must  attend  a  continuation  school  for 
three  hours  a  week  for  one  year,  or  her  employer  is  fined.  The 
schoolroom  is  usually  fitted  with  a  kitchen,  very  simply.  The  girls 
often  go  to  market  with  the  teacher,  and  later  alone,  with  money  and 
notebooks,  and  there  are  lessons  in  lighting  fires,  heating  water, 
ready  reckoning,  each  of  the  chief  articles  of  food,  with  prescribed 
reading.  In  industrial  districts  where  both  sexes  work  in  the  field, 
they  are  taught  in  compulsory  classes.  So  effective  is  the  training 
that  those  who  take  it  rarely  find  themselves  in  competition  with 
those  who  have  not  <lone  so,  but  receive  a  larger  wage  and  more 
ready  employment.  Often  in  schools  of  commerce,  as  well  as  trade, 
all  girls  learn  to  cook  and  mend,  perhaps  make  children's  clothes 
out  of  old  ones  of  adults.  The  country  has  fully  waked  up  to  tlie 
fact  that  money  spent  on  girls'  education  is  not  lost.  Among  the 
various  kinds  of  industrial  training  in  London  are  schools  intended 
to  teach  young  wives  to  wash,  cook,  iron,  make  their  own  dresses. 
These  make  the   ver>'  quickest  and  most   eager  pupils.     There  are 


688  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

often  peripatetic  teachers  who  hold  classes  in  clubs  and  other  insti- 
tutions on  dressmaking,  millinery,  first  aid,  nursing,  etc.  Training 
schools  for  infant  nurses  have  lately  assumed  great  importance  on 
account  of  the  increase  of  infant  mortality.  Surely  the  care  of 
children  must  be  raised  to  the  level  of  a  profession.  Even  the 
Froebel-Pestalozzi  House  trains  children's  nurses. 

In  this  country  the  Boston  Trade  School  for  Girls  was  based 
on  a  careful  local  study.  In  1910  more  than  half  the  girls  of  high 
school  age  in  the  city  were  earning  money.  Before  this  move- 
ment there  was  no  opportunity  for  training  for  Boston  girls.  It 
was  found  that  dressmaking,  millinery,  clothing,  machine  and  straw 
operations  were  the  best  trades.  A  policy  of  the  school  is  to  train 
girls  in  two  allied  seasonal  trades  so  that  the  slack  period  of  one 
fits  the  busy  period  of  another.  Each  pupil  selects  a  trade  which 
requires  about  a  year.  Sessions  are  from  8.30  a.m.  to  5.30  p.m.,  five 
days  a  week.  On  the  average  there  are  five  and  a  half  hours'  daily 
work  in  the  school,  with  two  hours  of  supplementary  work  at  home. 
The  school  year  begins  the  first  week  in  July  and  receives  pupils 
from  fourteen  to  seventeen,  although  they  may  be  admitted  when- 
ever there  are  vacancies.  Those  who  cannot  aflford  the  slight  ex- 
pense are  aided.  The  annual  cost  per  pupil  is  a  trifle  over  $100. 
It  was  found  necessary  to  admit  girls  of  fourteen  without  refer- 
ence to  schooling  and  allow  them  to  enter  and  withdraw  at  any 
time,  so  that  girls  enter  from  the  fifth  grade  to  the  high  school. 
There  is  overcrowding  and  a  long  waiting  list.  Useful  things  are 
made.  Should  such  a  school  be  self-supporting  if  it  sells  its  prod- 
ucts, and  should  they  be  up  to  the  market  standard,  or  will  this 
make  the  trade  school  a  mere  business  venture?  On  entering,  each 
girl  fills  out  a  blank  concerning  her  family.  Her  home  is  visited, 
and  on  this  basis  she  is  advised  what  trade  to  pick.  There  is  a 
school  record  of  her  strong  and  weak  points.  Girls  are  helped  to 
places  and  employers  asked  to  report  after  two  weeks.  Girls  from 
this  school  earn  all  the  way  from  four  to  eighteen  dollars  per  week, 
and  the  demand  is  greater  than  the  supply.  Trade  school  certifi- 
cates are  given  those  who  attend  twelve  months  and  average  90, 
and  a  record  of  their  career  is  kept.  There  is  a  Pioneer  Club  of 
old  pupils  for  fellowship  and  for  extending  the  influence  of  the 
school.  The  Woman's  Educational  and  Industrial  Union  also  main- 
tains trade  school  shops,  where  those  who  have  attended  for  one 
year  but  do  not  feel  quite  ready  to  enter  an  industry  can  support 
themselves  by  having  their  products  sold. 

The  Manhattan  Trade  School  for  Girls,  in  New  York,  opened 
in  1902,  admits  all  the  way  from  the  fifth  grade  up,  but  with  less 
study  of  local  demands,  and  appealing  to  rather  a  low  class  of 
wage  earners.  Millinery  is  far  better  in  Boston  than  in  New  York, 
while  the  reverse  is  true  for  pasting  and  novelty  work.  Dressmaking 
is  more  specialized  in  New  York,  while  power  machine  work  is 
best   in   Boston   and   employers    take    more    interest    in   their   girls. 


INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION  689 

who  are  on  the  whole  better  trained,  ahhough  more  are  foreign- 
ers and  both  poverty  and  health  conditions  are  worse.  The  Man- 
hattan School  is  open  the  year  round  and  instruction  is  free.  In 
1907  there  were  433  pupils,  and  the  expenses  for  the  year  were 
$67,000.  Most  pupils  remain  from  six  months  to  two  years.  During 
the  recent  depression  free  instruction  was  given  to  girls  thrown  out 
of  work,  and  in  1907  trades  were  taught  to  crippled  children.  Work 
is  adapted  to  aptitudes  of  pupils.  There  is  academic  instruction. 
About  one  third  take  dressmaking.  Each  keeps  a  time  book  to  show 
how  many  hours  are  given  to  each  dress.  The  Alliance  Bureau 
places  about  half  of  the  girls  from  this  school.  In  1907  about 
$12,000  was  received  from  order  work.  There  are  several  evening 
courses.  Lunches  were  brought  from  home,  but  warm  meals  are 
also  served.  The  school  aids  those  in  poor  health.  It  teaches 
cooking.  Some  pupils  are  little  housekeepers  whose  mothers  are 
sick  or  dead.  Twenty  girls  are  chosen  at  a  time  and  divided  into 
two  groups  for  six  weeks'  daily  instruction.  Each  receives  thirty 
lessons,  which  is  about  a  year's  course  in  cooking  in  the  public 
schools.  The  relation  of  employer  to  employee  is  part  of  the  course. 
There  are  several  auxiliary  associations,  also  a  student  council  and 
an  aid  committee  of  representatives  of  social  settlements,  with  trade 
certificates  at  the  end  and  physical  examinations  required. 

The  Hebrew  Technical  School  for  Girls  examines  every  appli- 
cant personally,  preferring  orphans  and  half-orphans  who  are  sup- 
posed to  be  grammar  graduates.  Ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  parents 
are  foreign-born.  In  1909  the  average  daily  attendance  was  355 
and  the  average  entering  age  14.7.  The  courses  are  eighteen  months. 
The  commercial  and  manual  cannot  be  taken  at  once.  The  hours 
are  8.45  to  4  and  instruction  is  free.  There  is  no  night  work,  no 
vacation,  but  lighter  work  and  more  physical  training  in  the  hot 
months.  Of  former  pupils,  971  earn  annually  $560,000  on  an  aver- 
age, or  $48  per  month  each.  The  school  is  maintained  by  voluntary 
contribution  and  costs  $45,000  a  year. 

Dressmaking  and  millinery  were  first  curriculized  in  this  coun- 
try at  the  Pratt  Institute.  The  ideal  taught  girls  was,  instead  of 
having  best  and  everyday  clothes,  to  have  all  best  for  each  pur- 
pose, for  this  varies  the  problem.  All  applicants  must  be  eighteen 
and  pledged  to  stay  a  year.  The  course  was  general,  including  the 
history  of  costumes,  business  methods,  physical  culture,  plenty  of 
draughting,  cutting,  talks  on  color,  on  buying,  etc.  l*"ach  makes  a 
number  of  dresses  for  herself,  and  the  |)rofits  of  all  costumes  and 
sales  work,  less  ten  per  cent,  go  to  the  maker.  Shops  nuist  l)c 
visited  and  fine  discriminations  made.  The  widening  difference 
between  indoor  and  street  gowns  and  modes  of  trimming  affords 
ever  greater  opportunity  for  the  display  of  talent.  Xow  courses 
long  and  short  are  given  in  many  places,  so  that  we  have  here  a 
rather  striking  instance  of  a  strong,  natural  instinct  turned  to  edu- 
cational uses.  Hence  it  merits  a  little  more  attention.  With  the 
45 


690  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

dawn  of  the  teens  come  with  girls  an  intense  interest  and  zest 
in  dress,  and  perhaps  especially  in  hats.  Even  the  very  few  who 
go  wrong  to  indulge  in  this  passion  for  finery  show  how  intense  it 
is.  Thus  here  is  a  great  natural  force,  mainspring,  or  reservoir  of 
psychic  energy  which  it  was  up  to  pedagogy  to  utilize.  This  inter- 
est has  been  studied  statistically  repeatedly,  and  about  half  the 
girls  at  nearly  this  period  seriously  think  of  becoming  milliners  or 
dressmakers,  so  important  does  the  dress  problem  loom  up  to  them. 
The  teacher's  question  is  how  much  wholesome  information  this 
zest  will  absorb  and  vitalize,  and  how  elaborate  culture  machinery 
it  can  be  made  to  run.  The  pedagogue  just  awakened  to  the  need 
of  industrial  education  visits  establishments,  sees  processes,  and 
then  sits  down  and  works  out  a  systematic,  thorough,  logical  course 
that  seems  so  orderly  and  symmetrical  and  gives  its  author  such 
complacency  and  is  launched  with  much  labor,  and  perhaps  expense. 
But  these  prospectors  omit  to  study  the  most  essential  factor  in 
the  problem,  viz.,  the  desires  and  interest  of  the  girls  themselves; 
and  so,  while  such  courses  start  well  and  a  few  persevere,  most  of 
those  for  whom  it  is  intended  and  who  are  expected,  fail  to  come 
or  drop  out  by  the  way.  The  demand  for  a  few  lessons,  perhaps 
a  dozen  or  less  evenings,  in  learning  how  to  trim  their  own  hats  in 
the  spring  and  fall  is  very  great,  but,  as  a  teacher  once  said  in  my 
hearing,  "  These  confounded  girls  are  so  frivolous  and  light-minded 
they  won't  touch  our  best  curriculum  here."  It  is  the  old  and  tragic 
story.  The  pedagogue  assumes,  instead  of  realizing  that  he  must 
create,  interest,  go  where  it  is,  take  it  as  it  is,  and  then  slowly  nurse, 
evolve,  cultivate,  and  elaborate  it.  It  is  not  enough  in  this  country 
to  make  courses  out  of  what  parents  want  for  their  girls,  or  what 
workers  with  them  think  they  ought  to  want,  but  the  start  here,  if 
it  is  to  be  successful,  must  be  made  with  what  the  girls  now 
desire.  This  is  the  raw  material,  crude  enough,  perhaps,  but  which 
must  be  developed  slowly  and  laboriously  to  an  ever  more  finished 
product. 

Admirable  as  the  above  ameliorations  are  and  great  as  is 
the  advance  they  make  upon  the  "  brain  refinery  "  methods  of, 
e.  g.,  the  stock  classical  high  school  which  is  so  obliterative 
of  personality,  even  the  further  progress  so  needed  in  the 
direction  of  trade  schools  will  never  solve  the  chief  problem 
of  woman's  education.  Wifehood  is  the  vocation  of  ninety- 
three  out  of  every  hundred  women  in  the  land,  and  mother- 
hood also  of  the  great  majority  of  these.  Thus,  women  are 
to-day  taught  least  of  all  the  things  they  most  of  all  need  to 
know,  viz.,  home-making  and  child-rearing.  In  these  mat- 
ters the  average  American  woman  to-day  is  ignorant  and  in- 
competent, and  the  school  is  doing  little  to  improve  her  in 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  691 

these  most  vital  of  all  respects.  She  is  growing  independent 
of  and  indifferent,  if  not  averse,  to  wedlock,  more  unwilling 
to  have  children,  less  able  to  nurse  or  even  to  keep  them  alive 
the  first  year,  if  not  during  the  first  five  years  of  life,  as  our 
sad  and  well-known  statistics  show.  Her  fling  at  a  trade 
makes  home  distasteful.  She  has  not  grafted  the  tree  of 
knowledge  on  to  the  main  branch  of  the  tree  of  her  life,  but 
at  the  best  only  on  to  suckers.  She  does  not  know  how  to 
buy,  and  yet,  as  Devine  has  well  shown,  she  largely  deter- 
mines consumption  and  markets.  Schools  for  the  care  of 
babies,  now  successful  in  various  parts  of  Europe,  the  Amer- 
ican girl  would  avoid,  and  to  study  children,  even  in  college 
classes  of  psychology,  seems  to  her  almost  like  "  casting  her 
sex  in  her  teeth."  She  too  often  prefers  to  forget  she  is  a 
woman  and  to  exult  in  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  sons  of 
men  rather  than  in  that  of  the  daughters  of  women.  Statis- 
tics show  that  about  one  fifth  of  our  girls  pass  through  a 
period  in  which  they  seriously  wish  they  had  been  born  boys. 
As  beaux  or  husbands,  men  do  not  come  up  to  their  ideals 
and  do  not  satisfy  them,  and  that  is  largely  our  fault,  as  I 
have  shown  in  Chapter  IV.  Nor  do  they  satisfy  us,  or  there 
would  be  more  and  earlier  marriages,  more  domestic  content 
and  home  staying,  and  less  divorce.  Our  education  must 
assume  that  girls  will  marry  and  not  that  they  will  be  single 
and  self-supporting,  and  that  wedlock,  if  it  comes,  will  take 
care  of  itself. 

Teaching  trades  and  teaching  domesticity  are  two  radically 
divergent  things.  The  pedagogy  of  the  two  differs  profoundly 
and  in  ways  all  of  wiiich  are  not  yet  realized.  The  first  is 
more  special,  the  last  more  general  education.  One  gives 
skill  and  technic;  the  other  is  more  all-sided,  varied,  and  evo- 
cative of  the  whole  personality.  One  tends  away  from  and 
the  other  toward  home-making.  One  makes  woman  a  com- 
petitor of  man  and  the  other  gives  her  a  field  more  to  herself. 
One  throws  the  stress  on  certain  parts  or  functions  and  leaves 
others  to  atrophy :  the  other  calls  out  more  all-round  and 
diversified  activities  that  are  more  favorable  for  full  physical 
development.  One  makes  woman  independent  and  more  able 
to  win  her  way  unaided :  the  other  brings  homey  and  homing 
thoughts  and  dispositions.     This  latter  consideration  is  jx-r- 


692  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

haps  the  most  profound  of  all.  Other  things  being  equal, 
girls  with  more  potential  wifehood  and  motherhood  in  their 
souls  and  bodies  would  always  choose  the  latter,  and  those 
with  less  would  gravitate  toward  the  former.  But  other 
things  are  not  equal.  A  trade  school  is  far.  easier  to  establish 
and  curriculize  than  a  school  of  domestic  arts  of  equal  grade, 
in  creating  which  woman  can  both  follow  and  get  more  aid 
from  man.  In  the  latter  she  must  take  her  stand  upon  her 
own  sex  and  is  left  more  to  her  own  resources.  The  one 
type  of  education  is  easier  intellectualized,  the  other  is  better 
moralized.  One  makes  woman  more  insistent,  the  other  more 
consistent  with  her  nature  and  history.  One  stresses  her 
rights  and  the  other  her  duties.  One  makes  her  realize  the 
annoyances  of  children  and  the  other  predisposes  her  to  love 
them  and  gives  her  thoughts  and  feelings  a  more  homey  turn, 
and  so  sweetens,  sanifies,  and  broadens  the  emotional  life. 
The  danger  of  one  education  is  that  it  will  incline  those  who 
take  it  to  selfishness,  while  the  other  is  full  of  altruistic  influ- 
ences. One  interests  her  in  business,  the  other  keeps  her 
nearer  to  the  fundamental  problems  of  life,  health,  reproduc- 
tion, disease. 

At  present  a  domestic  department  is  often  dangerous,  not 
to  say  almost  fatal,  to  the  success  of  an  independent  trade 
school  for  girls.  Those  pupils  who  specialize  in  practical  home 
economics  are  regarded  as  on  the  lower  social  plane.  Their 
activities  suggest  menial  if  not  servant-girl  work.  The  atti- 
tude of  girls  is  often  not  unlike  that  of  the  colored  race  shortly 
after  their  emancipation,  to  industrial  education.  They  felt 
that  freedom  meant  exemption  from  work,  and  such  training 
as  this  recalled  the  old  state  of  servitude.  Schooling  they  re- 
garded as  a  means  of  raising  them  above  the  necessity  of 
physical  toil.  So  our  high-school  girls  fill  the  Latin  and 
algebra  classrooms,  feeling  that,  once  initiated  into  these  sub- 
jects, they  are  best  of  all  safeguarded  from  the  dangers  of 
kitchen  work.  Boys,  too,  once  felt  that  secondary  education 
afforded  them  the  easiest  way  to  escape  from  the  farm.  But, 
thanks  to  the  new  agricultural  renaissance,  this  prejudice  is 
much  overcome.'  Only  another  movement  of  no  less  dimen- 
sions and  force  than  the  agricultural  revival,  which  should  be 
our  paradigm  and  inspiration  here,  will  ever  bring  about  a 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  693 

similar    reconstruction    of   girls'    ideals   concerning   domestic 
education. 

The  following  are  better:  In  the  vocational  school  at  St.  Albans, 
N.  Y.,  the  girls  learn  practical  housekeeping  in  the  kitchen  and  a 
dining  room,  which  are  simply  furnished,  the  former  only  with  a 
plain  coal  and  gas  range,  work  table,  sink,  and  dish  closet,  and  the 
dining  room  with  only  tables,  chairs,  a  china  closet,  and  a  simple 
table.  All  the  tablecloths,  mats,  napkins,  etc.,  are  made  by  the 
girls,  who  are  taught  to  sweep,  dust,  wash  windows,  have  lessons  in 
building  the  fire  and  care  for  the  stove,  sink,  and  tables.  They 
learn  to  cook  plain,  nutritious  dishes  and  to  buy  the  materials  they 
use,  and  to  set  and  serve  at  table.  They  study  nutritive  values 
and  expenses,  wash  and  iron  garments  made  in  sewing  classes,  the 
aprons  worn  in  school  work,  all  towels,  table  mats,  curtains,  and 
keep  a  book  of  recipes  used  in  cooking  lessons.  The  sewing  room 
is  large  and  equipped  with  sewing  machines  and  work  tables,  where 
the  girls  make  simple  garments  for  themselves  and  members  of 
their  families.  They  study  cotton  and  woolen  fabrics  and  are  taught 
something  about  the  different  kinds  of  weaves,  dyes,  and  are  en- 
couraged to  collect  and  mount  samples  of  the  different  kinds  of 
material  they  are  most  likely  to  use.  Very  simple  principles  of 
design  and  color  for  table  and  wall  ornaments,  placing  of  tucks, 
ruffles,  embroidery  for  underwear  and  trimmings  for  dresses  are 
taught,  and  candle  shades  and  lamp  shades  and  pillow  covers  are 
planned  and  made,  and  as  much  academic  work  as  possible  is  ap- 
plied here. 

The  public  schools  of  Columbia,  Ga.,  are  unique  for  the  industrial 
education  they  provide  for  primary  grades,  where  girls  are  taught 
home  economics,  cooking,  housecleaning,  laundering,  floriculture, 
yard  decoration.  There  are  four  domestic  science  centers,  one  for 
white  and  one  for  black  children,  each  with  elementary  and  higher 
grades.  Every  girl,  white  or  negro,  receives  from  two  to  five  years 
of  training  in  home  economics.  The  negro  girls  prepare  and  serve 
a  meal  to  their  minister,  and  the  white  girls  to  six  guests.  They 
also  make  light  refreshments  for  mothers'  meetings,  etc.,  and  help 
prepare  the  school  Thanksgiving  and  Christmas  dinners.  The  .sec- 
ondary girls  prepare  and  serve  every  day  a  school  lunch,  which  is 
sold  at  cost  to  teachers  and  pupils.  They  also  make  and  serve  for 
visitors,  of  whom  there  are  many  to  see  this  uni(jue  system.  The 
secondary  school  is  open  eleven  months  a  year,  from  8  to  4,  with 
a  half  holiday  .Saturday,  and  lasts  three  years.  All  who  enter  must 
be  fourteen  and  have  completed  the  fifth  grade.  Although  tuition 
is  free,  both  sexes  are  charged  five  dollars  per  term  for  books,  etc. 
No  foreign  language  is  permitted,  but  other  academic  topics  are 
taught.  The  last  two  months  of  the  last  year  students  must  spend 
in  practical  work,  if  possible,  and  make  <laily  rej)orts.  In  the  last 
graduation  exercises  each  member  demonstrated  what  she  could  do. 


694  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

Cloth  was  woven,  from  it  a  dress  was  drawn,  cut,  fitted,  made,  and 
the  valedictorian  returned  to  the  platform  wearing  it,  receiving  her 
diploma  in  that  department. 

In  the  Oread  School  of  Worcester,  which  was  essentially  a  school 
of  domestic  science,  with  cooking  as  its  center,  taking  for  the  most 
part  high  school  graduates  from  all  over  the  country,  the  commence- 
ment exercises  consisted  in  each  girl  or  pair  of  girls  making  a  dish. 
The  salutatorian,  in  academic  gown,  made  soup,  explaining  what 
she  did  while  doing  it  on  the  stage.  Then  fish  was  cooked  and 
served,  while  the  valedictorian  made  and  distributed  ice  cream.  The 
longer  processes  like  cooking  and  the  hiatuses  were  filled  up  by 
changing  viands,  and  all  were  served  after  the  exercises  were  over. 
St.  George's  Parish  has  a  model  tenement  flat  where  girls  of  the 
East  Side,  New  York  City,  learn  the  arts  of  home-making.  Several 
other  churches  have  opened  cooking  and  other  domestic  classes  in 
their  vestries. 

College  and  university  settlements,  neighborhood  houses, 
friendly  aid  societies,  and  many  personal  and  club  agencies 
besides  the  public  and  private  schools  teach  some  elements  of 
home  economics  and  household  arts.  Training  schools  for 
teachers  of  these  subjects  have  lately  been  established  at  Co- 
lumbia and  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin  and  at  a  few  nor- 
mal schools.  The  intense  interest  often  taken  by  girls  as 
young  as  eight  years  of  age  in  learning  to  cook  a  few  plain 
dishes  is  very  significant.  They  not  only  make  themselves 
more  useful  at  home  but  love  the  work  itself.  Indeed,  it 
ought  to  have  a  very  strong  phyletic  recapitulatory  momentum 
comparable  with  that  of  boys  for  hunting,  for  it  is  probably 
as  old  in  the  history  of  the  race.  To  be  a  good  cook  means 
more  than  memorizing  a  few  recipes.  It  involves  knowledge 
of  almost  every  useful  vegetable,  plant,  and  spice,  and  the 
interest  widens  from  that  of  the  market  to  the  very  varied 
source  of  supplies.  It  involves  neatness,  order,  system,  good 
judgment,  and  taste  in  every  sense  of  the  latter  word,  pres- 
ence of  mind,  and  in  addition  to  this  a  certain  kindly  human- 
istic disposition  to  really  benefit  all  those  who  partake.  Young 
boys  have  often  been  taught  to  cook  with  pleasure  and  profit 
to  themselves  and  their  families.  From  making  fudges,  rare- 
bits, roasting  corn  afield,  and  clambakes,  to  bread-making  and 
a  boiled  dinner  is  quite  a  distance,  but  all  the  interval  is 
bridged  by  imperceptible  gradations,  although  we  are  not  yet 
quite  sure  of  the  best  curriculum.     But  certainly  the  young 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  695 

cooker's  appetite  may  itself  often  be  turned  on  as  a  pedagogic 
motive.  To  eat  what  one  has  prepared  ought  to  be  a  great 
pleasure,  although  it  might  be  a  punishment  too  cruel  to  in- 
flict. A  colored  woman  who  long  cooked  for  me  felt  genuine 
pride  in  all  I  did,  as  if  it  were  really  her  work,  and  if  I  was 
indisposed,  often  felt  her  own  conscience  sore,  on  the  prin- 
ciple, "  man  ist  was  er  isst."  Cooking  was  one  of  the  chief 
agents  in  achieving  our  civilization.  Perhaps  it  may  be  called 
the  first  practical  chemistry  and  be  regarded  as  a  good  peda- 
gogico-genetic  introduction  to  that  science.  There  are  dinner 
givers  whose  good  name  rests  largely  upon  the  culinary  art  of 
their  cooks,  and  not  a  few  men  as  well  as  women  are  proud 
of  demonstrating  before  their  guests  their  own  proficiency  in 
making  some  special  food  or  concocting  some  special  drink. 
Those  classes  that  are  set  the  task  of,  e.  g.,  "  planning  and 
cooking  a  good  dinner  for  seven  at  a  cost  of  fifty-two  cents  " 
face  a  proposition  that  challenges  a  great  variety  of  their  best 
powers  of  head  and  hand,  not  to  say  heart.  Even  the  art  of 
making  and  keeping  a  good  fire,  in  which  I  find  nine  lessons 
in  one  course,  is  partly  a  product  of  innate  genius,  and  is 
only  in  part  one  of  the  teacherbilia.  Surely,  water  boils  more 
easily  for  some  than  for  others.  Not  only  for  the  sake  of 
the  home  should  all  girls  become  adepts  in  cooking  a  modest 
repertory  of  plain,  wholesome  dishes,  but  for  their  own  sake 
and  use,  for  all  young  women,  however  employed,  should  have 
both  the  facilities  and  the  inclination  to  prepare  at  least  one  or 
two  of  their  own  daily  meals,  if  for  no  other  reason,  in  order 
to  keep  alive  the  flickering  flame  of  domesticity  on  the  hearth 
of  their  hearts.  They  should  not  be  allowed  to  forget  the 
truth  of  the  adage  that  the  way  to  a  man's  heart  is  through  his 
stomach.  Indeed,  what  man  could  long  resist  a  maiden  who 
thus  laid  siege  to  his  affections?  Culture  history  sht)ws  that 
this  was  once  a  potent  stimulus  and  motive  to  culinary  accom- 
plishment, although  it  is  now  greatly  in  need  of  revival.  Per- 
haps I  am  betraying  the  secret  of  my  sex.  but  here  is  an 
ancient  source  of  fascination  that  young  women  are  neglect- 
ing to  their  immeasurable  loss,  ])rovi(k'(i  they  care  for  wife- 
hood and  settled  domesticity.  As  to  conjugal  and  domestic 
happiness,  too.  goo<l  cooking  would  do  very  much  to  prevent 
disruptured  households,  would  keep  the  man  from  the  saloon, 


696  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

to  which  he  often  takes  refuge  to  appease  the  needless  crav- 
ings of  his  digestive  apparatus,  and  would  make  boys  more 
contented  with  home,  for  often  a  good  meal  served  in  the 
right  way  gives  a  physiological  peace  that  passes  all  under- 
standing. Why,  then,  in  none  of  our  cooking  courses  for 
little  housekeepers  is  due  attention  paid  to  the  splendid  social 
settings  of  this  high  art?  Its  mere  mechanism  is  good  and 
is  much,  but  the  reenforcement  of  it  from  the  larger,  higher 
reservoir  of  motivation  that  ethics,  historic  and  cultural  value 
and  relations  could  supply  is  the  one  thing  needful  which  is 
lacking  here.  Not  only  woman's  education,  but  her  position 
■  in  modern  life  would  be  vastly  improved  by  a  renaissance  of 
the  kitchen  as  the  center  of  home  influences.  As  long  as 
most  women  neglect  and  despise  the  work  which  for  a  major- 
ity of  their  sex  has  always  been  and  always  will  be  so  cardinal, 
they  neglect  the  very  center  of  the  home  and  of  their  hearts. 
Most  cooking  teachers,  if  they  do  not  lack  due  respect  for  their 
calling,  at  least  do  not  glory  in  it,  and  until  they  put  more 
pride  into  their  work  and  set  it  in  a  larger,  higher,  intellectual 
horizon  it  will  not  attain  the  position  we  are  now  seeing  that  it 
demands  and  are  beginning  to  desire  it  should  have. 

We  need  model  kitchens  of  different  grades,  sizes,  costs, 
with  the  best  and  simplest  wood,  coal,  and  oil  stoves,  sinks, 
etc.  The  kitchen  should  be  well  lighted,  with  a  pleasing  color 
scheme  and  as  pleasant  as  the  living  room.  Everything  in 
it  should  be  plain  and  arranged  in  the  most  economic  step- 
saving  way,  with  plenty  of  inexpensive  utensils.  There  is  no 
such  educational  environment  for  girls.  It  is  more  than 
stable,  barnyard,  and  garden  combined  for  the  boys.  Here 
even  the  daughters  of  the  wealthy  should  be  made  to  feel  at 
home  no  less  than  in  the  parlor.  They  should  be  eagerly 
interested  in  all  new  devices.  A  well-equipped  kitchen  is  a 
constellation  of  pedagogic  agencies.  The  time  is  at  hand,  I 
believe,  when  there  will  be  a  kitchen  in  every  grade  school 
from  which  boys  will  not  be  excluded,  for  here  they  will  learn 
useful  things  and  their  ideals  of  woman's  work  will  undergo 
needed  reconstruction.  There  should  be  cooperation  with 
home  kitchens  and  a  carefully  inaugurated  scheme  of  mutual 
visitation.  Spinster  teachers  need  a  new  orientation  and 
polarization,  a  more  motherly  attitude,  to  which  this  would 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  697 

help  them.  From  prizes  for  dooryard  improvement,  awarded 
according  to  comparative  rather  than  absolute  standards,  it 
would  not  be  so  great  a  step  to  prizes  for  home-kitchen  im- 
provement. Why  should  not  domestic  teaching  be  first  and 
chief  of  all,  since  most  of  the  activities  of  most  women  of 
the  land  focus  here,  and  why  should  not  school  influence  be 
as  much  felt  and  contagious  in  the  home  as  has  been  the  case 
with  school  gardening?  The  present  hygienic  interest  in 
school  dietaries  will  never  be  vital  until  the  school  shows  how 
to  make  kitchen  work  better.  I  believe  the  time  is  at  hand 
when  we  shall  see  a  great  and  new  wave  of  enthusiasm  for 
the  kitchen  sweep  over  the  country.  If  signs  do  not  fail,  this 
is  likely  to  involve  a  change  in  our  very  architectural  ideas 
of  the  home  as  centering  in  the  hearth.  Will  not  some  phi- 
lanthropist give  us  plans  of  ideal  homes,  with  the  kitchen 
made  the  pleasantest  and  most  attractive  room  in  the  house, 
with  an  ideal  equipment  for  a  laundry  next,  and  with  both 
these  quite  equal  in,  if  not  exceeding  in,  attractiveness  a 
library  or  music  room,  and  second  in  attractiveness  at  least 
only  to  the  nursery  ?  House  cleaning  used  to  be  a  great  period 
in  old  New  England,  full  of  new  interests,  a  great  developer 
of  the  instinct  of  order  and  system,  a  kind  of  general  review 
of  the  year.  All  these  and  other  great  topics  in  this  domain 
need  a  new  and  different  kind  of  book  presentation  in  which 
their  material  is  set  forth  in  a  broader,  more  cultural,  histor- 
ical, and  social  perspective  and  be  less  busy-work,  and  this 
would  bring  out  their  dignity  and  their  hygienic,  moral,  edu- 
cational significance  that  is  now  for  the  most  part  undreamed 
of.  The  girl  in  the  middle  teens  who  cannot  sew  and  make 
simple  things,  who  would  grow  dyspeptic  or  starve  if  com- 
pelled to  live  on  her  own  cooking,  who  cannot  launder  the 
simple  articles  of  toilet,  who  knows  nothing  of  caring  for 
children  and  is  not  interested  in  them,  is  a  physiological  and 
social  monstrosity  which  is  too  frequent  in  our  day  and  age. 
Marriage  for  such  girls  is  prone  to  end  in  tragedy  for  both 
parties.  We  have,  in  view  of  these  specimens  of  our  race, 
only  the  new  consolation  that  nature  may  very  likely  design 
a  fraction  of  this,  as  of  our  own  sex,  for  single,  if  not  neuter, 
life,  and  that  if  nature  decrees  it,  it  is  somehow,  although  we 
know  not  how,  for  the  best. 


698  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

Exasperating  as  it  is  to  the  American  feminist  to  be  told 
that  woman's  sphere  lies  in  kitchen,  clothes,  children,  and 
church  (the  four  k's  of  the  German — Kiiche,  Kleider,  Kinder, 
and  Kirche),  the  world  is  learning  again  that  these  are  the 
big  four,  or  cardinal,  points  of  the  compass  in  human  life,  the 
foci  of  chief  interest,  without  any  one  of  which  woman's  life 
is  a  maimed,  shriveled,  and  distorted  thing.  The  world  to-day 
is  calling  her  back  to  these  and  anxiously  awaiting  her  re- 
sponse. The  kitchen,  or  hearth,  means  nutrition.  Man  is 
what  he  eats.  The  struggle  for  survival  is  the  struggle  for 
food  throughout  nature.  Its  production,  transportation,  mar- 
keting, and  preparation  absorb  the  life  of  more  than  one  third 
of  the  race  to-day.  Milk,  eggs,  meat,  vegetables,  drinks, 
adulteration,  purity — these  are  vital  points  of  culture  history, 
the  bases  of  economy,  attracting  ever  more  attention  from 
academic  chairs  as  domains  of  applied  science.  Next  to  food 
comes  clothes,  raiment,  which  also  has  its  psychology,  ethics, 
hygiene,  and  history  from  the  skins  of  cavemen  up  to  the 
fashion  plate  magazine.  Children,  in  these  days  of  genetic 
psychology  and  child  study,  when  the  child  is  seen  to  be  the 
key  to  the  evolution  of  man,  emanate  all  the  studies  of  eugen- 
ics, sex,  population,  and  heredity,  while  religion  is  the  mother 
of  all  science  and  culture,  the  first  and  also  the  last  philosophy. 
With  these  the  life  of  woman  is  bound  up,  and  all  that  does 
not  contribute  to  the  better  practical  knowledge  of  them  is 
of  little  worth.  Back  to  these  should  be  our  slogan.  Nothing 
else  can  ever  really  interest  woman,  call  out  her  best  powers, 
give  her  the  true  rights  she  now  demands,  or  glorify  her  sex. 
The  future  of  the  race  and  of  civilization  is  bound  up  with 
her  education  on  these  lines,  and  I  invoke  leaders  of  her  sex 
to  complete  its  emancipation  by  achieving  the  mastery  nature 
intended  for  her  in  this  sphere.  To  these  themes  she  can  give 
her  heart,  mind,  and  will  as  to  nothing  else.  Despite  all  her 
new  industrialism  and  all  her  ambitions  and  advances  in  art, 
science,  and  politics,  despite  the  declining  birth  rate,  the  aliena- 
tion of  her  interest  from  domestic  life,  there  is  no  ground  for 
pessimism,  for,  unless  all  signs  fail,  the  tendencies  of  the  best 
and  most  insightful  women  are  now  back  to  this  abandoned 
trail,  and  the  near  future  will  see  the  new  dispensation  of  her 
education  upon  these  four  foundations.     Indeed,  the  psycho- 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  699 

logical  moment  seems  now  at  hand  when,  if  a  well-selected 
commission  of  the  right  women  of  means  and  insight  would 
study,  confer,  collate,  and  then  bring  out  a  course  from  about 
the  fourth  grade,  or  earlier,  on  and  up  to  the  bachelor's  and 
even  the  doctor's  degree  with  these  four  interests  always  car- 
dinal, it  would  be  a  point  of  departure  for  a  new,  better,  and 
richer  training  for  woman,  that  without  losing  anything  she 
has  gained  in  the  long  thirty  years'  "  war  of  sex  against  sex," 
would  bring  its  fruits  to  a  harvest  home  of  all  her  rights  in 
a  new  domestic,  social,  industrial  world  in  which  her  sex  will 
everywhere  be  doing  the  things  it  can  do  best.  Such  a  course 
should  be  primarily  for  the  large  majority  who  leave  early. 
Hence,  the  essentials  should  be  taught  as  soon  as  possible  on 
the  concentric  plan,  each  grade  repeating  what  had  been  stud- 
ied before.  It  should  bring  together  all  the  many  often  timid 
fractional,  tentative  endeavors,  but  begun  in  different  places, 
should  sift,  compile,  and  elementarize  with  a  judicious  admix- 
ture of  intellectual  and  practical  at  each  state.  A  study  of 
the  prime  necessities  of  life  should  make  poverty  more  eco- 
nomic and  hygienic,  and  then  the  course  should  widen  out  to 
accessory  cultural  elements,  going  up  the  grades  of  the  social 
scale  at  the  same  time  and  finding  and  opening  every  prac- 
tical opportunity  at  every  grade,  permeating  each  with  illus- 
trations, concrete  cases,  visitation,  and  keeping  in  touch  with 
the  actual  life  of  the  community,  so  that  the  school  should  be 
life  itself  rather  than  mere  preparation  for  it.  It  is  easy  to 
indulge  in  superlatives,  but  it  is  probably  not  extravagant  to 
call  something  like  this  the  chief  need  of  the  civilized  world 
to-day.  At  least,  let  him  or  her  who  can  name  a  greater  one 
be  heard  from.  Doing  must  be  made  a  vital  organ  of  know- 
ing, and  not.  as  hitherto,  the  converse.  Wherever  possible 
the  girl  must  know  and  do  practical  things  and  le.irn  the  sci- 
ence and  theory  of  it  later.  Girls  of  the  higher  .social  strata 
must  look  and  go  down  to  the  more  elemental  simjjlc  life  of 
the  lowly,  and  girls  from  the  humbler  walks  must,  as  they 
advance  up  the  grades,  see  and  know  more  of  the  comfortable 
and  cultural  ways  of  life. 

I  append,  with  some  hesitation,  a  skit  I  am  allowed  to  reprint 
from  Applclon's  Magazine  (June,  1909.  vol.  xiii,  pj).  O""-/)^^). 
which    sliows    how    one    representative    American    citizen    was    con- 


700  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

verted  from  the  traditional  ignorance  and  indifference  of  his  sex 
toward  woman's  home  work  to  the  greatest  respect  for  it.  His 
method  of  investigation  was  the  only  true  one,  viz.,  that  of  scien- 
tific experimental  pedagogy.  It  is  the  true  adventure  of  a  man  in 
domestic  industry. 

A  stalwart,  young  college  professor,  a  friend  of  mine,  lately 
spent  the  summer  vacation  at  his  home  trying  to  write  a  book  on 
industrial  education  for  girls,  a  work  not  yet  published.  For  exer- 
cise, tiring  of  his  wheel,  bedroom  chest  weights  and  dumb-bells,  and 
stupid,  solitary  walks,  and  wishing  to  use  his  strength  practically, 
he  lately  did  a  week's  washing  for  his  family  of  six  under  the 
direction  of  a  laundress,  and  to  her  mingled  amazement  and  amuse- 
ment. He  tells  me  he  never  learned  more  in  the  same  time,  or  faster, 
and  that  neither  in  the  gymnasium,  tennis  court,  or  on  the  golf 
links  did  he  ever  get  quite  such  varied  hygienic  exercise.  In  the 
splendid  freedom  of  a  collarless,  cuffless,  unstarched  shirt,  discarded 
and  unsoilable  pants  held  up  by  a  belt,  and  in  low  slippers,  nothing 
more,  he  went  about  the  day  before  with  a  large  wash  bag  gathering 
sheets,  towels,  handkerchiefs,  skirts,  napkins,  under-  and  night  clothes 
from  nursery,  bath,  and  bedroom  closets,  that  the  preliminary  mend- 
ing might  be  done.  He  applied  salt  and  lemon  juice  to  rust  stains, 
an  especial  acid  to  ink,  and  other  things  in  bottles  for  grass,  berry, 
and  other  stains,  rubbed  lard  in  the  greasy  places,  soft-soaped  some 
of  the  most  dirty  spots  and  things,  and  put  everything  to  soak  in 
three  set,  stone  tubs  in  the  basement  washroom,  keeping  the  white 
and  cleaner  things  by  themselves,  and  also  sawed,  split,  and  laid 
kindling  under  the  big  copper  cauldron  by  the  tubs. 

Next  morning,  when  the  college  chimes  rang  six,  he  was  already 
at  his  work,  with  the  enjoyable  sensation  of  bare  feet  a  la  Kneipe, 
and  sleeves  up  to  his  shoulders.  He  had  ransacked  the  college 
library  and  worried  its  chief  for  literature  on  the  subject,  only  to 
find  that  no  one  had  ever  put  together  all  that  needed  to  be  known 
on  this  subject.  Therefore  he  resolved  to  assign  it  as  a  master's 
thesis  to  the  next  girl  graduate  who  consulted  him.  He  suggested 
it  to  one  only,  for  she  told  him  plainly  that  she  came  to  college  to 
get  away  from  such  things,  and  seemed  grieved  and  almost  affronted 
lest  it  imply  he  thought  her  incapable  of  a  loftier  career.  He  told 
her  that  one  of  the  best  commencement  parts  he  had  ever  seen  was 
at  the  well-known  Oread  cooking  school,  where  a  girl  in  a  mortar- 
board hat,  but  bare  arms,  washed  one  shirt  waist  and  ironed  another 
before  an  audience,  telling  them  at  the  same  time  what  she  did  and 
how  and  why.  It  was  all  in  vain,  for  to  this  the  young  lady  replied 
that  she  was  not  seeking  a  diploma  as  a  washerwoman  and  would 
die  before  she  would  do  such  a  thing  in  public,  and  so  would  all 
the  rest.     So  that  settled  it. 

My  friend  ensconced  his  laundress  in  a  wicker  chair  in  a  cool 
comer,  near  by  an  open  window,  to  direct.  They  both  agreed  that 
Chinamen  who  sprinkled  clothes  with  water  from  their  mouths  were 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  701 

filthy,  and  that  the  steam  laundry,  which  used  acids  and  tore  off 
buttons  with  machinery,  even  if  it  did  make  things  whiter,  was  not 
suitable  for  real  Vere  de  Vere  families  or  for  climbers  who  would 
be  true  topnotchers.  She  had  also  given  him  nuggets  of  information 
in  a  rich  brogue  about  soaps,  a  kind  of  lecture  so  meaty  that  he 
wished  to  stop  on  the  spot  and  note  points.  From  the  anatomical 
laboratory  my  friend  had  procured  a  pair  of  rubber  gloves  used 
in  dissections,  but  soon  discarded  these.  First  he  gently  punched 
and  prodded  the  soaking  mass  in  the  tub  with  the  cleanest  white 
things,  soaping  and  wringing  a  little  till  his  inspectress  was  satis- 
fied, and  transferring  everything  into  the  already  bubbling  cauldron. 
In  the  next  tub  it  was  dirtier.  To  get  down  to  first  principles,  he 
had  discarded  washers  and  wringers  and  went  to  work  on  the  wash- 
board, an  imitation  of  which  has  been  cleverly  smuggled  into  the 
list  of  gymnasium  apparatus  under  the  imposing  and  euphonius 
classic  name  of  sthenico-dynamo-generator,  or  chest  strengthener. 
This  he  found  an  ideal  apparatus  for  the  pectoral  muscles  and  those 
of  the  back  and  shoulders,  combining  some  of  the  best  movements 
of  rowing,  parallel  bars,  and  sawing  wood.  Here,  indeed,  he  felt 
he  had  found  an  athletic  bonanza.  Wringing  in  whichever  of  half 
a  dozen  ways  always  required  the  principle  of  opposition  of  the 
two  forearms  and  was  a  distinct  improvement  upon  the  hand-wrist- 
twist- weight-lifter  of  the  gymnasium.  The  clothes  lines  of  white 
cotton,  which  had  been  taken  in  weekly  and  kept  in  a  bag  (for  the 
mistress  of  this  house  had  high  ideals  of  Spotless  Town  and  the 
City  of  Hygeia),  unlike  wires,  were  incapable  of  staining,  and  these 
were  strung  on  trees  over  his  hedge-protected  back  yard.  Carrying 
his  first  tubful,  weighing  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven  pounds,  up 
the  steps  and  some  eighty  feet,  he  stretched  each  out  symmetrically, 
not  without  soiling  a  few,  however,  which  had  to  go  back,  hanging 
white  garments  in  the  sun  and  colored  ones  in  the  shade,  fastening 
each  in  place  with  a  basket  of  wooden  pins,  learning  meanwhile 
where  they  could  be  bought  at  ten  cents  for  six  dozen.  Now  the 
trophies  of  his  toil  swung  like  banners  in  the  glorious  wind  and  sun. 
Thus  he  persisted,  keeping  woolen  garments  in  successive  waters 
of  a  cool  and  constant  temperature  to  avoid  shrinking,  boiling  the 
linen  and  cotton  with  a  tablespoonful  of  kerosene,  a  little  bluing, 
and  just  a  pinch  of  salsoda.  After  three  hours,  including  a  hasty 
breakfast,  or  soon  after  nine  o'clock,  his  work  was  done,  and  he 
had  himself  photographed,  standing  before  the  drapery  he  had 
cleansed,  proud  as  a  huntsman  beside  his  first  bear  or  a  fisherman 
with  his  best  catch.  At  9.30  a.m.  he  had  taken  a  cold  bath,  re- 
dressed, and  was  at  his  desk,  with  a  clear  head,  an  exuberant  sense 
of  well-being,  and  of  having  done  something,  and  a  bit  touched 
with  conceit,  leaving  to  his  mentor  the  more  unhcroic  task  of  bring- 
ing in  the  wash  when   it  was  dry. 

To  be  sure,  his  knuckles  were  a  trifle  raw  and  sore,  and  athlete 
though  he  was,  his  forequarters  were  a  little  tired;  but  he  had  tasted 


702  EDUCATIONAL    PROBLEMS 

all  the  gamey  flavor  of  camping  out  without  a  hot  and  dusty  journey  to 
get  there  and  back.  He  almost  but  not  quite  resolved  that  henceforth 
he  would  always  do  the  wash  and  not  throw  away  so  wholesome  and 
inspiring  an  opportunity  for  physical  culture  to  be  enjoyed  by  paid 
servants.  Now  at  least  no  washerwomen's  union  could  boycott  him. 
The  servant  may  have  dimly  felt  his  thoughts,  for  as  the  task  went 
on  she  passed  from  volubility  to  taciturnity  and  glumness,  possibly 
fearing  that  she  would  suffer  from  future  economy  and  retrench- 
ment. However,  the  first  act  of  the  drama  was  successfully  ended. 
I  wanted  to  print  the  above  photograph  of  my  friend  as  he  stood 
six  feet  one,  weight  one  ninety-eight  plus  before  and  one  ninety- 
seven  minus  afterwards,  deducting  his  breakfast,  which  he  was  me- 
thodical enough  to  weigh.  His  modesty,  however,  forbade  me. 
Were  he  the  first  woman  in  the  land,  he  declared,  he  would  have 
been  proud  to  let  it  appear.  He  marveled  that  there  was  no  young 
lady,  perhaps  just  from  the  high  or  normal  school  or  college,  who 
would  not  set  the  world  a  new  fashion,  and  wondered  whether  she 
was  too  coy  and  shy  of  the  many  celibates  in  search  of  a  wife  who 
would  chortle  with  joy  and  fall  at  her  feet.  To  think  of  it  seriously, 
why  this  horror  of  washing,  especially  when  many  society  ladies 
confess  to  me  confidentially  that  they  do  and  love  it  in  a  small  way 
privately.  Schuyten  found  in  a  comprehensive  census  just  pub- 
lished that  less  than  two  and  one  half  per  cent  of  the  girl  students 
in  the  teens  had  ever  wished  or  planned  to  devote  themselves  even 
to  domestic  life  in  general,  although  seventy-five  per  cent  were 
proposing  teaching  or  other  culture  careers — so  little  does  our  edu- 
cational system  fit  young  women  for  their  destiny.  How  many  of 
them  to-day  ever  did  or  could  do  a  good  washing,  or  have  either 
the  brain,  muscle,  or  endurance  for  it? 

Tuesday,  again  at  6  a.m.,  my  friend  was  in  the  laundry  cleaning 
and  firing  the  stove,  and  getting  out  and  polishing  the  flatirons,  and 
preparing  three  qualities  of  starch.  There  was  no  mangle  or  roller, 
and  all  was  by  hand.  In  ironing,  however,  he  had  to  be  shown  as 
well  as  told  by  his  teacher,  for  this  was  skilled  labor,  and  of  a 
very  different  order.  But  he  was  patient  and  docile  and  learned 
to  avoid  tearing  off  buttons,  ripping  open-work,  making  holes  with 
the  point  of  his  tool,  scorching,  and  got  a  few  points  about  ironing 
in  creases  and  folds,  to  tow  up  well  into  plaiting,  not  to  rip  deli- 
cate tissues,  how  to  use  different  irons  in  relays,  and  to  tell  when 
each  was  too  hot  or  cold.  At  nine  o'clock,  leaving  most  of  the 
hardest  things  to  his  expert,  he  arrayed  himself  in  the  things  he 
had  ironed  himself,  even  a  bosom,  collar,  and  cuffs,  and  was  photo- 
graphed again  with  his  pile  of  work  beside  him,  which  he  then 
distributed  to  their  places.  Mending  he  did  not  undertake  yet. 
His  courage  was  still  triumphant,  but  the  heat,  mental  and  nervous 
strain  had  told  upon  him,  and  some  of  his  fundamental  ideas  about 
woman  and  her  work  were  a  little  joggled.  He  became  conscious 
of  a  silent  sense  of  superiority  on  the  part  of  his  employee  toward 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  703 

him,  and  wondered  henceforth  if  it  might  be  harder  for  her  to  feel 
all  the  respect  due  to  the  head  of  the  house.  Several  burns  dis- 
tracted his  attention  from  his  study,  although  he  had  learned  and 
applied  some  valuable  recipes  new  to  him  which  might  come  handy 
in  other  circumstances.  His  six-year-old  girl  complained  at  dinner 
that  the  collar  of  her  white  dress  scratched  her  neck  and  was  stiff 
as  a  board,  and  the  precious  pocket  in  her  apron  would  not  open, 
and  noticed  that  his  own  collar  was  a  little  limp  and  spotted,  which 
required  him  to  change  it  later.  His  thirteen-year-old  girl,  in  the 
fluffy-ruffles  stage,  seemed  conscious  throughout  the  evening  of  some- 
thing wrong  about  the  one  garment  of  hers  he  had  attempted,  and 
his  devoted  wife  never  let  him  know  that  many  of  his  chef-d'cjeuvres 
had  to  be  starched  and  ironed  over  again,  and  tactfully  answered 
his  inquiries  during  the  week  whenever  he  saw  one  of  his  new 
bits  of  handiwork  in  use  that  all  was  well,  that  even  the  clean 
napkins  did  not  open  too  hard,  and  that  it  was  all  the  style  now 
to  have  them  so  stiff  and  pasteboardy  that  they  would  stay  put  and 
almost  stand  on  end. 

What  puzzled  him  most  of  all  was  how  the  laundress,  who  never 
read  a  book  or  an  article,  and  never  took  a  lesson,  learned  to  do 
all  these  things,  for  the  effects  of  never-printed  tradition  and  long 
practice  were  hardest  of  all  for  this  professor  of  books  to  appre- 
ciate. He  ransacked  his  library  in  vain  to  find  any  trace  of  the 
evolutionary  history  of  this  art,  or  to  learn  the  how,  when,  and 
where  of  the  precision  of  the  development  of  the  instruments  and 
the  skill.  How  accomplishments  like  ironing  could  have  developed 
in  the  race  and  been  transmitted  for  countless  generations  without 
any  of  the  advantageous  aid  of  print  was  to  him  a  marvel.  Here 
he  feared  he  must  leave  a  great  gap  in  his  book  on  household  arts 
and  education. 

Wednesday  was  cleaning  day,  and  he  started  off  feeling  quite 
himself  again.  First  he  took  all  the  rugs  from  the  library  to  the 
yard  and  beat  them  well  and  long,  learning  to  stand  on  the  wind- 
ward side.  This,  together  with  rolling  and  unrolling  and  carrying 
them,  he  found  capital  exercise,  as  was  taking  the  furniture  out 
into  the  hall.  Sweeping  was  too  dead  easy,  but  going  over  the 
floor  on  hands  and  knees  with  a  wet  rag  set  back  the  shoulders, 
brought  out  the  chest,  strengthened  the  cucullarcs,  complcxus,  bivcn- 
ter,  and  erectores  spina?,  and  many  other  muscles.  .Mr.iost  nothing 
woman  does  or  can  do,  he  declared,  could  be  quite  so  hygienic, 
although  going  over  every  part  of  a  chair  with  a  dust  rag  requires 
so  many  positions  that  it  is  a  close  second  to  floor  scrubbing  in 
hygienic  value.  Dusting  the  mantel  and  bric-a-brac  and  handling 
all  ihe  books  was  careful,  puttering  work,  and  in  doing  this  he  had 
several  lessons  as  he  broke  things  on  the  delicacy  and  deftness  of 
manipulation  required,  and  learned  a  lesson  in  charity  to  servants 
who  have  accidents  with  ornaments.  He  also  learned  much  of  se- 
quences as  well  as  of  patience,  and  even  to  marvel  at  the  acutencss  of 


704  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

perception  of  his  wife,  now  his  overseer,  as  she  detected  spots  of 
dust  which  he  had  left  in  the  openest  spaces  as  well  as  in  crevices. 
Furniture  and  picture  frames,  he  declared,  should  always  be  plain, 
with  no  groovings  or  flutings;  every  floor  corner  should  be  beveled; 
there  was  no  use  in  having  so  many  useless  things  about  merely 
for  ornament;  windows  should  never  be  opened  to  let  in  dust,  and 
decorated  china  and  everything  repousse  and  in  relief  should  be 
eschewed,  and  books  kept  behind  glass  cases,  with  rubber-fringed, 
dust-tight  doors,  with  flaps  at  every  keyhole.  When  he  asked  his 
wife  to  mark  the  grade  of  his  excellence  in  this  morning's  work, 
she  gravely  said  that  there  were  three  demerits  for  breakages,  that 
he  deserved  about  forty-five  for  dusting,  seventy-five  for  wet-ragging 
the  floor,  pointing  out  his  defects,  and  one  hundred  plus  for  rug- 
beating  and  handling.  This  ended  the  third  lesson,  with  many  new 
types  of  physical  culture  of  both  fundamental  and  accessory  muscles, 
and  new  knowledge  and  viewpoint  of  women's  works  and  ways, 
which  he  had  seen  from  the  outside  before  but  never  till  now  felt 
or  appreciated.  He  wondered  if  he  ought  not  to  advocate  in  his 
book  that  all  intending  husbands  should  be  required  by  law  to  take 
the  course  he  was  now  giving  himself  before  they  embarked  on  the 
sea  of  matrimony,  a  consideration  that  probably  will  be  amplified 
in  his  volume  in  a  way  that,  I  think,  will  command  the  thoughtful 
attention  of  housewives  who  may  read  it.  He  fancied  that  marital 
ties  would  be  cemented  if  the  lords  of  creation  had  acquired  such 
intelligent  sympathy  and  appreciation  of  their  wife's  responsibilities 
as  this  experience  would  insure. 

After  these  experiences  my  friend  felt  an  inspiration  to  take  a 
vacation  the  rest  of  the  week,  and  the  next  week  his  wife  and 
children  spent  with  her  parents,  leaving  him  alone  with  the  servants. 
Monday  morning  he  resolved  to  give  a  stag  dinner  to  eleven  of  his 
friends,  to  some  of  whom  he  had  long  felt  under  obligations.  He 
also  wished  to  feel  that  he  could  do  it  alone  d  la  regie.  So,  after 
a  careful  inspection  of  pantry,  ice  box,  and  cellar,  to  note  the 
supply  already  on  hand,  and  having  timidly  broached  his  purpose 
to  the  cook,  he  started;  and  after  having  studied  from  several 
cook  books  what  courses  he  wanted,  he  sallied  forth  to  the  market. 
Clams  on  the  half  shell  with  lemons  and  ice  were  easily  provided 
for;  and  so  was  soup  with  vermicelli  and  rice,  a  favorite  of  his. 
For  fish,  he  wished  his  guests  to  have  each  a  good  brook  trout, 
but  found  it  closed  season,  with  a  stringent  law  well  on.  But  the 
fishmonger  told  him  confidentially  that  he  knew  a  way  to  provide 
them  at  about  twice  the  usual  cost,  and  so  he  culpably  compounded 
with  crime  and  ordered  them.  A  crown  roast  of  lamb  with  peas 
gave  little  trouble;  but,  in  providing  the  ice,  which  in  his  judgment 
must  have  rum,  he  realized  that  he  lived  in  a  no-license  town.  But 
here  again  the  grocer  knew  a  way,  and  again  he  became  a  silent 
partner  in  crime.  He  had  set  his  heart  on  partridges,  at  least  half 
a  one   for   each   guest;   but   this   the   game   laws   seemed  to   make 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  705 

improbable,  and  he  could  only  leave  an  order  to  provide  them  if 
practicable,  otherwise  to  fall  back  upon  squabs  or  snipe  with  mush- 
rooms. Thus  he  became  thrice  a  potential  criminal.  The  ice  cream 
must  be  made  at  home  and  cast  in  individual  molds,  and  these  he 
had  to  find  to  his  taste  and  buy.  Nuts,  Porto  Rico  coffee,  sweets, 
ginger,  Apollinaris,  and  other  minor  items  were  provided,  and  wines 
he  fortunately  had.  And  so  he  went  home,  with  some  complacency, 
after  several  hours  of  nerve-racking  and  mentally  fatiguing  work. 

But  now  his  real  trouble  began.  The  cook  absolutely  balked,  and 
declared  she  could  never  prepare  all  these  dishes  without  the  super- 
intendence of  the  mistress,  and  that  the  homemade  ice  cream  in 
individual  molds  was  impossible.  He  thought,  too,  that  he  detected 
in  her  mind  lack  of  confidence  in  her  ability  to  prepare  the  trout 
as  he  wanted  it,  and  she  declared  that  if  she  undertook  the  entire 
task  she  must  have  three  dollars  extra  and  a  helper.  Being  un- 
willing to  apply  to  his  neighbors  for  the  loan  of  a  cook,  he  set 
out  for  an  intelligence  office  and  learned  of  an  expert,  whom  he 
at  length  found  in  a  remote  part  of  the  city,  who  would  bestow 
her  efforts  for  the  day  for  five  dollars,  but  must  be  supreme.  To 
this  his  own  cook  at  first  flew  into  a  downright  revolt,  and  re- 
sponded by  threatening  to  bolt  at  once,  bag  and  baggage.  But  by 
promising  her  an  extra  three  dollars,  she  consented,  though  with 
no  very  good  grace,  to  the  conditions.  The  chambermaid  agreed 
to  serve  at  the  table,  as  she  had  often  done,  but  let  it  be  plainly 
seen  that  she,  too,  expected  to  do  so  for  a  consideration.  He 
wished  another  table  girl  in  the  same  kind  of  black  dress,  with 
white  cap  and  shoulder-strap  apron,  and  she  suggested  that  a  friend 
of  hers  would  be  willing  to  come  in  for  the  evening  for  a  proper 
fee,  although  she  had  no  uniform.  She  was  found,  taken  to  an 
establishment,  duly  fitted  out  for  eleven  dollars  and  a  half,  and  at 
7  P.M.  my  friend  sat  down  to  his  solitary  meal,  excited  in  mind  and 
body,  a  real  case  of  nerves  which  perturbed  his  sleep  with  painful 
dreams. 

Happily,  he  little  realized  what  was  before  him  the  next  day,  on 
which  I  perhaps  ought  to  draw  the  veil.  So  I  will  not  enumerate 
the  things  found  lacking  or  the  orders  which  came  late,  or  not 
at  all,  so  that  sudden  shifts  had  to  be  made,  how  his  colored  man 
and  he  were  subjugated  the  entire  day  and  kept  running  by  the 
cook.  Nor  will  I  describe  the  friction  between  the  special  and  the 
stated  help;  the  discovery,  when  the  table  came  to  be  laid,  that 
several  plates  and  glasses  in  the  sets  required  were  one  or  more 
pieces  short,  and  the  further  shifts,  trips  townward.  and  purchases 
thereby  made  necessary;  how,  when  he  came  to  don  his  tuxedo,  no 
clean,  broad-bosomed  shirt  was  found  save  one  he  had  ironed,  and 
which  it  made  his  very  soul  groan  to  wear ;  how  both  the  trout 
and  squabs,  for  some  mysterious  reason,  proved  one  short,  so  that 
he  had  to  decline  both  rather  than  let  one  guest  go  unserved  in  these 
courses;  how  very  promptly  each  invited  guest  arrived;  how  long 
46 


7o6  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

the  initial  wait  before  dinner  was  announced,  or  how  long  the 
delays  between  several  of  the  courses;  how  anxious  he  was  through- 
out, in  contrast  to  the  ease  and  confidence  he  had  felt  when  giving 
dinners  in  which  his  wife  had  borne  all  the  burdens  he  was  now 
bearing  and  given  no  sign ;  how  light  of  heart  he  grew  when 
the  coffee  and  cigars  were  served,  and  especially  when  a  familiar 
guest  praised  the  perfection  of  an  establishment  that  could  give 
such  a  dinner;  how  tempted  he  was  to  reveal  the  fact  that  he  had 
done  it  all  and  that  his  wife  was  not  only  not  in  the  kitchen  at  all, 
but  one  hundred  miles  away,  and  in  blissful  ignorance  of  his 
treacherous  invasion  into  her  domain.  Nor  will  I  describe  his  feel- 
ings when  later  he  added  up  the  cost  of  his  little  dinner  per  plate 
and  compared  it  with  what  he  might  have  offered  approximately 
the  same  for  at  the  club.  But  it  was  all  his  own,  his  very  own. 
And  it  would  be  easier  next  time,  only  this  time  was  quite  enough 
for  him  for  the  present.  But  this  adventure  in  domesticity  he  felt 
sure  would  outrank  all  the  others  in  its  bitter-sweet  memories  when 
it  came  to  the  olim  meminisse  juvahit,  which  was  kept  fresh  in  his 
mind  during  the  subsequent  days,  when  his  own  lonely  meals  were 
made  up  of  or  interlarded  with  the  remains  of  his  sybaritic  feast. 

Cooking  to  him  had  come  to  seem  the  art  of  arts.  Ever  since 
Prometheus  gave  men  the  control  of  fire  they  have  been  evolving 
this  "  preliminary  digestion,"  every  advance  in  which  sets  free  more 
kinetic  energy  for  culture  and  civilization.  Good  cooking,  too,  is 
the  only  cure  for  intemperance,  and  bad  cooking  its  only  cause,  he 
holds.  He  had  studied  the  chemistry  of  foods  a  little  and  experi- 
mented a  little  with  Fletcherism  and  the  opposite  theory,  that  food 
should  be  bolted,  was  a  little  heretical  about  the  advantages  of 
regular  meal  times,  and  inclined  to  the  view  that  eating  only  when 
one  was  hungry  and  what  one  most  wanted  was  best  for  the  system. 
He  tried  to  teach  his  children  geography  a  little  by  telling  them 
where  each  item  on  their  table  came  from,  how  it  grew,  was  pre- 
pared for  the  market,  etc.  He  told  them,  for  instance,  of  the  habits 
of  salmon,  mackerel,  swordfish,  and  the  rest,  of  Africa  and  the 
Eastern  Islands  where  spices  grew,  of  slaughterhouses,  canning 
meats  and  vegetables,  while  grains  of  all  kinds,  fruits  of  all  sea- 
sons, birds,  every  edible  variety  of  meats,  even  wines  and  beers  and 
all  the  rest,  were  texts  of  informal  talks  which  he  had  carefully 
prepared  for  years  that  the  children's  appetites  might  be  made  ap- 
perception centers  for  all  the  botanical  and  zoological  knowledge, 
accounts  of  processes  and  localities,  that  they  could  be  made  to 
contain.  To  this  rather  unique  organization  of  his  knowledge  he 
was  slowly  adding  a  limited  curriculum  of  cooking,  and  on  this 
theme  had  accumulated  several  shelvesful  of  books  and  choice  recipes 
in  clippings.  As  in  the  refectories  of  the  old  monasteries  and 
mediaeval  universities  a  cleric  read  scripture,  litany,  hymn,  or  prayer 
from  the  liturgy  to  students  at  their  meals,  so  my  friend  discussed, 
at  least  at  their  dinner,  one  or  more  edibles,  and  found  that  from 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  707 

confectionery  to  common  household  medicines,  stomach  and  palate 
were  great  quickeners  of  the  intelligence  and  were  unique  fructifiers 
of  many-sided  interests.  His  kitchen  garden  and  flower  beds  at  his 
summer  home  had  long  been  among  the  best  in  the  vicinity,  and 
he  spent  hours  with  farmer,  gardener,  and  children,  working  and 
telling,  and  insisted  on  the  latter's  right  to  spend  as  much  time  as 
they  wished  in  the  kitchen  itself,  which  he  deemed 'the  best  possible 
laboratory  for  them. 

Plain  cooking  he  knew  something  of,  and  Thursday  and  Sunday 
afternoons,  when  the  cook  was  out,  he  with  his  wife  and  children 
prepared  the  evening  meal  and  kept  alive  the  old  traditionary  feel- 
ing of  the  hearth  as  the  heart  of  the  home.  But  there  were  many 
mysteries  of  this  high  art  he  could  never  master.  Practice  and 
study  as  he  would,  his  wife  excelled  him  here  as  much  as  he  did 
the  children,  or  as  the  cook  excelled  her.  He  had  repeatedly 
invited  fellow  campers  to  a  meal  of  his  own  preparation,  but  pal- 
atable as  his  best  stunts  were,  they  were  few  and  too  little  elab- 
orated for  any  appetite  or  places  save  those  of  the  wood  and  shore. 
Such  game  and  fish  as  he"  had  taken  himself,  and  chickens,  were  his 
strong  points.  On  the  paternal  farm,  as  a  youth,  he  had  learned 
to  do  many  things,  and  as  a  student  in  the  laboratory  in  Germany 
he  had  taken  courses  of  lessons  each  of  a  shoemaker,  plumber,  glass- 
blower,  broom  maker,  bookbinder,  and  he  set-  type  and  carved  wood 
a  little.  But  with  all  his  unique  and  chronic  passion  for  learning 
to  do  new  things,  nowhere  did  he  make  closer  acquaintance  with 
more  of  his  own  limitations  than  in  this  domain,  although  he  had 
for  years  been  a  culinary  endeavorer.  Fancy  cooking  and  the  am- 
bition to  cater  to  the  loftier  heights  of  gastronomic  art,  like  the 
great  chefs  some  of  whom  have  attained  fame  through  two  con- 
tinents, was  not  in  his  mind ;  but  never  so  much,  perhaps,  as  when 
he  was  invited  to  partake  of  meals  prepared  and  served  by  students 
in  cooking  schools  and  departments,  for  which  he  had  a  strong 
penchant,  did  he  so  long  to  "  point  to  higher  worlds  and  lead  the 
way  "  as  in  this  department  of  household  art.  He  vowed  that  it 
was  his  wife's  skill  in  this  field  that  first  won  his  heart,  and  that 
organ  should  always  be  captured  thus  through  the  stomach ;  that 
man  is  an  animal  that,  like  other  beasts,  best  loves  his  best  feeder. 
In  season  and  out  of  season  he  was  prone  to  ask  ever  his  hostesses 
at  their  own  table  what  they  could  and  did  cook  themselves;  and 
so  strong  was  his  habit  that,  had  he  not  been  naturally  so  ingra- 
tiating and  intrinsically  popular,  he  would  have  made  himself  gen- 
erally disliked.  He  often  did  thus  give  offense,  though  his  queries 
were  generally  regarded  as  fads  or  eccentricities  of  genius,  and 
met  with  laughter  and  jests  rather  than  with  answers. 

Of  about  everything  that  the  chambermaid,  butler,  and  coach- 
man knew  he  was  already  past  master,  but  house  cleaning  was  his 
pet  foible.  In  this  avocation,  for  some  two  months  every  spring,  ho 
found  just  the  physical  exercise  and  mental  diversion  that   seemed 


7o8  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

most  of  all  helpful  for  both  mind  and  body.  Two  or  three  hours 
a  day  sufficed.  .  Beginning  in  his  own  study  and  arrayed  in  suitable 
attire,  with  every  window  open,  each  book  was  carefully  dusted, 
two  or  three  at  a  time,  out  of  the  window,  and,  shelf  by  shelf,  the 
books  of  each  tier  were  removed,  dusted,  returned,  and  as  each 
section  was  finished  covered  with  a  sheet  well  tucked  in.  Windows 
were  washed,  curtains  taken  down  for  cleansing  and  repair,  every 
picture  overhauled  and  rehung.  Incidentally,  too,  every  book,  pam- 
phlet, paper,  lecture,  book  note,  letter  file,  drawer  and  its  content 
were  overhauled  and  arranged  in  order,  sometimes  according  to  a 
new  scheme.  Wheelbarrow  loads  of  literature  were  discarded  and 
taken  to  the  library  or  the  cremation  furnace  in  it,  or  to  the  second- 
hand bookstore,  to  make  room  in  advance  for  the  accumulations 
of  the  following  year.  All  this  process  meant  also  that  everything 
was  mentally  inventoried,  lost  treasures  found  and  relocated  in  their 
proper  place,  stray  and  scattered  leaflets,  manuscripts,  letters,  clip- 
pings were  sorted,  fastened  together,  pigeonholed  in  the  desk,  like 
brought  to  like,  to  the  great  saving  of  time  and  energy  throughout 
the  year.  This  work  no  other  could  po^ibly  accomplish,  however 
carefully  directed,  without  adding  to  the  confusion.  New  and  im- 
portant arrangements  here  where  most  of  his  working  hours  were 
spent  gave  also  a  unique  and  most  exquisite  pleasure,  perhaps 
because  it  placed  him  in  masterful  command  of  all  the  resources 
in  this  plethoric  rpom,  full  of  the  accumulations  of  years.  Stand- 
ing desk,  low  table,  lounge,  reclining  chair,  drop  light,  smoking  stand 
and  all  its  accouterments,  rotary  bookcase,  cases  of  drawers  for 
cards  and  for  filing  large  envelopes,  writing  and  reading  chairs — 
everything  was  rearranged,  and  many  petty  labor-saving  devices  and 
conveniences  gave  a  glow  of  happiness  of  a  hitherto  psychologically 
unclassified  kind.  What  was  it?  At  any  rate,  all  this  brought  him 
nearer  to  his  work,  made  him  more  completely  master  of  all  his 
resources,  and  restored  actual  touch  with  many  things  that  were 
lapsing  from  his  cognizance,  gave  a  clear  and  fresh  feeling  of 
increased  efficiency,  and  made  old  things  seem  new.  It  was  some- 
what as  if  his  very  brain  was  undergoing  reorganization  and  resani- 
fication.  His  thinking  could  now  be  more  systematic  and  effective, 
and  his  whole  intellectual  nature  felt  tidied  up,  cleansed,  and 
refreshed. 

Our  ancestors,  the  cave  dwellers,  apparently  never  cleaned  house, 
but  let  the  debris  of  broken  flint,  implements,  worn-out  mortars  and 
pestles,  and  even  garments,  to  say  nothing  of  bones,  shells,  and  ashes, 
accumulate,  living  on  top  of  it  all  for  generations,  and  when  the 
cave  was  full,  moving  to  another.  I  know  old  houses  in  which 
the  inmates  inherit  a  similar  propensity,  and  are  unable  to  dispose 
of  disused,  and  even  broken,  worn-out  articles.  Old  papers,  clothes, 
shoes,  hats,  letters,  books,  furniture  are  carefully  preserved,  per- 
haps relegated  to  attic,  lumber  room,  or  closet,  until  all  are  burst- 
ing.    "  Anything  may  come  handy,"  and  so  it  is  carefully  laid  up 


INDUSTRIAL   EDUCATION  7C59 

and  forgotten.  Woe  betide  him  or  her  who  lays  destructive  hands 
upon  it!  Households  have  been  disrupted  by  this  conservative  in- 
stinct clashing  with  that  to  clean  up.  One  estimable  housewife  I 
know  fell  into  hysterics  because  in  her  absence  an  old  chest  full  of 
rags,  samples,  remnants,  envelopes,  clippings  was  sorted  over  and 
the  worthless  part  burned  on  the  dump  by  a  husband  who  needed  the 
chest,  although  she  had  not  opened  it  for  fourteen  years.  For  a 
year  after  everything  she  could  not  readily  find  she  was  sure  had 
been  destroyed  in  the  great  holocaust.  House  cleaning  should  be 
an  imaginary  moving,  and,  painful  as  it  often  is  to  condemn  old 
things  hallowed  by  associations,  to  have  once  been  strenuous  in 
this  matter  often  gives  "  a  peace  that  passeth  understanding,"  and 
which  is  probably  somehow  akin  to  the  elimination  of  waste  tissue 
by  the  agency  of  a  too  long  neglected  bath.  To  keep  lengthening 
rows  of  old  shoes,  rubbers,  trousers,  coats,  dresses  for  years  in 
the  vague  hope  of  needing  them  for  some  outing,  or  until  just  the 
right  person  to  .use  them  comes  to  the  door,  is  a  form  of  psychic 
slouchiness  akin  to  letting  the  tailings  of  a  mine  block  its  entrance. 
Heirlooms  and  special  keepsakes  are  different.  Yet  the  moral  of 
nature's  lesson  is  iconoclastic.  Man  needs  to  molt  most  such  things 
in  order  that  his  soul  may  grow,  attain  adequate  detachment  from 
the  past,  and  live  more  palpitatingly  in  the  present.  Nations  with 
the  longest  and  most  elaborately  recorded  history,  like  modern  Italy 
and  Greece,  are  not  better  for  that  fact,  if,  indeed,  they  are  not 
impaired  by  the  burden  of  their  memories.  This  may  help  some 
at  least  to  explain  my  friend's  passion,  amounting  almost  to  a 
mania,  for  house  cleaning.  Perhaps,  when  he  is  older,  he  will  feel 
differently.  But  he  lately  declared  that  for  nearly  though  not  quite 
every  old  book,  the  substance  of  which  he  knew  tolerably  well,  that 
he  expropriated  or  destroyed,  he  felt  an  access  of  power  to  master 
the  next  new  one  upon  the  subject.  Every  old  letter  file,  with,  to 
be  sure,  some  exceptions,  that  he  consigned  to  the  wastebasket 
gave  new  exhilaration,  because  of  the  feeling  that  he  would  never 
have  to  look  these  over  and  decide  their  fate  again,  as  he  had  so 
often  done  annually,  but  could  now  devote  the  time  and  energy  to 
better  uses.  The  distribution  of  unmendable  furniture  relieved  his 
mind  of  the  faint  but  year-long  prompting  to  get  it  repaired,  for 
such  a  feeling  of  duty  to  invalided  articles  may  become  almost  an 
obsession,  and  perhaps  weaken  the  character,  as  good  intentions  too 
faint  to  ever  prompt  action  are  said  to  do.  For  years  he  had  kept 
a  long  shelf  for  unbound  continental  books,  part  of  which  was  lost, 
in  the  hope  that  some  time  the  missing  forms  would  appear;  but 
having  mustered  courage  to  assign  the  lot  to  the  furnace,  his  very 
heart  bounded  with  self-gratulation,  a  very  little  as  the  burden  of 
sin  is  said  to  fall  off  the  back  of  the  penitent. 

Thus  he  or  she  who  does  not  sometimes  clean  house  with  his  or  her 
own  hands,  does  not  and  cannot  feel  the  full  sense  of  ownership  and 
possession  of  treasures.     To  be  really  loved  they  must  be  touched, 


7IO  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

handled,  moved,  furbished,  and  the  more  work  lavished  upon  them 
the  more  they  arje  not  only  sensed,  but  loved  and  treasured.  Thus 
the  rich  do  not  own  their  "  things " ;  they  are  simply  stored  with 
them  and  are  ownerless.  It  is  like  the  case  of  mothers  who  have 
borne  but  never  nursed,  fed,  dressed,  or  otherwise  tended  their 
children,  so  yftiat  the  latter  are  really  orphaned,  though  living  in 
plenty.  It  is  moral  slouchiness  about  psychic  housekeeping  akin  to 
senescence,  which  is  caused  by  the  accumulation  and  nonelimination 
of  the  waste  products  of  decomposition  that  lets  useless  things  accu- 
mulate unduly,  while,  conversely,  the  drastic  exercise  of  the  spring 
function  brings  rejuvenation  of  spirits  and  makes  and  keeps  us  like 
young  people  who  have  not  yet  lived  long  enough  to  accumulate 
burdensome  impedimenta. 

I  have  not  begun  to  do  justice  to  my  friend's  practice  or  to  his 
theories.  If  I  rightly  catch  his  drift,  he  is  penetrated  with  the 
conviction  that  woman  is  in  danger  of  losing  respect  for  and  inter- 
est in  some  of  her  own  most  fundamental  functions,  and  he  desired 
to  see  at  first  hand  if  these  were  all  so  loathsome.  He  finds  most 
of  them  exhilarating  and  peculiarly  hygienic.  He  is  not  conceited 
enough  to  think  that  his  solitary  example — and  solitary  enough  it  is — 
or  his  precept  when  his  book  appears  will  set  her  again  upon  her 
lost  trail.  He  fears  she  is  abandoning  her  glorious  kingdom,  and 
that  so  set  is  her  determination  to  follow  man  that  she  will  return 
"to  her  own  only  if  he  leads  the  way.  He  is  able  to  find,  experi- 
enced as  he  is  in  athletics  and  in  varied  industries  and  handicrafts, 
nothing  quite  so  wholesome  for  body  and  soul  as  doing  precisely 
what  woman  is  now  turning  her  back  upon.  He  holds,  too,  that  no 
housewife  can  possibly  have  washing,  cooking,  cleaning,  etc.,  well 
done  by  servants  who  has  not  learned  how  and  actually  done  these 
things  well  herself,  whether  she  be  a  millionaire  or  a  professionally 
married  woman,  helping  her  husband  outside  the  home  to  support 
his  family.  He  would  find  and  make  in  domesticity  new  centers 
for  the  education  of  girls  and  women,  and  holds  that  it  would  not 
be  less,  but  more  purely  cultural  than  present  methods.  But,  as  a 
lady  professor  in  his  own  college  remarked,  "  though  he  is  a  good 
fellow,  he  is  a  queer  Dick,  and  the  bats  that  have  domesticated  them- 
selves in  his  belfry  seem  to  be  a  new  species,  though  they  are  prob- 
ably harmless." 


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